Concert Report by Sylvie & Alain
Michael Schenker at The Riviera Rock Festival, Juan Les Pins, France
July 27, 2012
Added on 07/29/2012

Hi Ritchie,

This is Sylvie and Alain from France. We've just came back from Juan-Les-Pins and the "Riviera rock Festival" which take place from the 25th july until the 30th and presents great bands like Simple Minds, Status Quo and of course Michael Schenker.

This night (27th july 2012) was dedicated to the guitar, imagine, on the same night : MS, Uli Jon Roth and Stan Skibby. Stan is a very talented american black guitarist who excelled in doing covers of Jimi Hendrix and he played as well as Jimi himself, maybe the most important thing is that he played in a trio form like Jimi. In fact, when you close your eyes when listening, it's somehow difficult to hear differences between the "primitive rock" of Jimi and the playing of Stan (as he described it himself).

After a 45 minutes set, it was time for Uli Jon Roth to enter the stage. It was a long long time I've seen him on stage (1998) and i'm very surprised that his set was well "Scorpions" oriented with no less than 5 tracks from the old days (Sails of Charon - We'll burn the sky - In Trance - Catch your train - I've got to be free).

We have the time during the afternoon to meet briefly Herman and Francis (which told us about the gig in South Korea coming soon and also another European tour in 2013 !). After the balance, Michael came and he recognize us, that was great ! 3 Cd signed and a picture rapidly taken and Michael leave the place rapidly by going ... in the sand of the beach ! Yes, you've read correctly, This festival take place in a well known place for jazz festival just in front of the beach, so after Stan Skibby, for the people that take place in this big seated venue in open air, they've seen the sun going down during the set of Uli, wonderful !

At 10pm, We heard the traditional long intro that preceded the Shatner speech. First track played was "Into the arena", and we saw Michael smile during all the set, although at the debut of the concert, there was a lot of sound problems coming from some dysfuntional mike in front of the Marshall cabinet. Michael continue to play, he seems happy to play at this festival.

The set played was the same as the "temple of rock Tour", with a lot of Herman's smiles at us. Doogie was in top form (the sound was very clear), and he smiles at us also, at the end of the gig, we have a big surprise, in fact, i'm afraid it was a bit of a misunderstanding between the band and Uli. After a marvelous "Rock bottom" (one of the best solo for this tour), the band was supposed to leave the stage for the encore. Then Uli came in and instead of "Holiday", they played "Doctor doctor", a nice version with 2 lead guitars.

We've made this big travel (by airplane) to see Michael again and we were rewarded by one of the best show of the tour, maybe because of the atmosphere, the "Riviera" is such a marvelous place, with a nice weather and a very good staff.

Hope to see him again soon...

Sylvie and Alain



Concert Photos by Jean
Michael Schenker at The Riviera Rock Festival, Juan Les Pins, France
July 27, 2012
Added on 03/16/2013





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