Author: Urban Bolta
Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Venue: Exit Chmelnice / Prague / Czech Republic
Concert date: October 27, 2010
Attendance: 150
Ticket price: €20.00
If love of music is your only compass, how big an act is commercially doesn’t matter one bit. With that thought in our heads, Aleš and I set off in the middle of the work week on an almost day-long trek to Prague, hoping to get the chance and the honor to catch the Americans Y&T live one more time in our lives. This is a band that, without a shred of doubt, belongs at the very top of the list of acts today’s generation of rock conquerors have already forgotten. Undeservedly!
With this year’s album “Facemelter,” Y&T proved that in 2010 they’re still running at full steam, and they made a hard rock record that can proudly stand next to their best releases from the first half of the eighties. In recent years Y&T have been visiting Europe regularly, but as if cursed, the tours keep giving our country a wide berth, so for the “Facemelter” tour, picking Prague was the most sensible option available. Exit Chmelnice, the club that hosted Y&T, sits on the eastern edge of the Czech capital, right off one of the main roads into the city, and it’s a great choice for mid-sized shows. The room sounds good, has a friendly vibe and a capacity of around 400, and I probably don’t need to stress that the prices at the bar are very kind to a Slovenian wallet.
This tour is a very special one for Y&T, for one reason. I’m talking, of course, about the absence of Phil Kennemore, the bassist who over three and a half decades has become the band’s very symbol and, besides vocalist/guitarist Dave Meniketti, is the only original member left. Phil was diagnosed with cancer this summer, so he’s being treated at home, and on this leg of the tour the bass spot has been filled by the young Brad Lang. Rounding out the four-piece are second guitarist John Nymann and drummer Mike Vanderhule. In just the few months since the Sweden Rock Festival (report here), where I last saw them, that treacherous illness has added a new chapter to the Y&T story. Let’s hope it ends well and Phil is back on stage with his bandmates soon!
After a set from local hard rockers Nobody Knows, the stage was ready for the headliners in no time. The club, though, was still pretty empty. There were a hundred of us in all, and we greeted Meniketti and company with enthusiasm as they opened the show with On With The Snow, a real banger and the herald of a great performance! Hard Times followed, then the first highlight of the night, Mean Streak. After a few songs it was already possible to size up the new guy, bassist Brad Lang. The kid is technically solid and has already soaked up the band’s spirit over the earlier part of the tour, so he and Vanderhule made an unfailing rhythm section this evening. Watching Lang, a comparison with Foreigner bassist Jeff Pilson crept in all on its own, since the two share not only a physical resemblance but also their stage moves, and both make excellent use of their space on stage. Brad Lang clearly had a ball playing, flying around with his guitar on the right side of the stage, but only when it was called for, because he always had to watch that he didn’t accidentally steal the show from Dave Meniketti during his vocal and solo moments.
The most moving moment of the concert came with the ballad If You Want Me, which Meniketti dedicated to his longtime friend, the missing bassist Kennemore, who Dave surely thinks of at every single show. Shine On and I’m Coming Home that followed, mixed in among the older material, backed up the claim about the new album’s quality. They have all the recognizable trademarks of the band’s sound: slower intros often followed by galloping hard rock riffs and vocal harmonies in the choruses, which is why the crowd gave the “Facemelter” tracks a warm welcome too. Then came an extremely strong middle stretch of the show, where Y&T lined up the greatest triumphs of their career one after another: I Believe In You, Eyes Of A Stranger, Midnight In Tokio and, somewhat surprisingly, Rock And Roll’s Gonna Save The World broke the last bit of ice, the energy started flowing back and forth between band and crowd with zero restraint, and the perfection of the performance shone even brighter. Y&T have tweaked their eighties songs slightly for the live setting. I Believe In You, for example, now ends at a slower tempo, and many songs get longer instrumental passages where the Meniketti–Nymann pairing proves their mastery once again.
The grueling pace of the show didn’t spare Meniketti’s voice, which no longer sounded completely assured on the held notes. Still, for what he delivered, we can only bow deeply to the band’s leader and founder. His fingers coaxed gorgeous solos out of the guitar, along with the dirty blues riffs that the whole Y&T sound is built on. Dave is a frontman from head to toe, a charismatic leader who, with nothing but sophisticated guitar work and no pointless chatter between songs, manages to hypnotize the listener in an instant. Anyone who has heard Baroom Boogie from under his fingers knows exactly what I’m talking about! Dirty Girl, Summertime Girls, and Forever and Rescue Me in the encore made for a superb finish to an unforgettable show. These guys keep their heads on straight and are experienced enough to know what to give their fans so nobody walks out hungry. Even if deep down they were surely a little disappointed by the poor turnout, the musicians gave it everything they had on stage and rewarded everyone there with a heaping helping of hard rock classics!
Drawing the line under the performance only confirmed what I expected. Every single kilometer of the trip to Prague was worth it, as was every cent spent and, finally, the two vacation days burned. Y&T are a live attraction that will reward every fan of old-school rock with an unforgettable evening. I hope I get to see them again someday! Once more it was confirmed that above all the gigs that pass without any media fanfare are, for a true music connoisseur, the peak of existence. The Prague show was definitely one of them. Y&T, thanks for another unforgettable night!
photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Setlist
1. Prelude 2. On With The Show 3. Hard Times 4. Mean Streak 5. Shine On 6. If You Want Me 7. Lucy 8. Hurricane 9. I’m Coming Home 10. I Believe In You 11. Eyes Of A Stranger 12. Midnight In Tokio 13. Rock And Roll’s Gonna Save The World 14. Blind Patriot 15. I’ll Cry For You 16. Black Tiger 17. Baroom Boogie 18. Dirty Girl 19. Summertime Girls 20. Forever —encore— 21. Rescue Me
Photo Gallery
