Concert Review by Jigal Temple of Rock at Musichall, Worpswede, Germany November 1, 2014 Added on 11/02/2014
dear Ritchie,
thank you for all you work and effort you put into updating us all with Schenker news. I really do appriciate that all!
Let me send you a few words about yesterdays gig of Michael Schenker's Temple of Rock in Worpswede. Worpswede is a tiny village not far away from Bremen but known for painters who came and settled there in the 19th century to enjoy the wonderful light of the countryside scenery. But yesterday it was lights out in the local Music Hall which was well filled to capacity. It was also quite a mixed crowd. Not only old men beyond their fifties but also many young faces and women. At 9 pm the Swiss combo Maxxwell opened with a solid show. Their friendly and quicksilver frontman got the usually very reserved Northern German crowd into chanting and clapping.
At a quarter past ten Schenker started with Doctor Doctor. What a surprise. I expected that one as encore. During that song Michael already started shaking hands with the front row. It was a bombastic start for a great show.
Another surprise was to see Michael playing a white Dean semi hollowed/semi accoustic V with "s" shaped holes (in the style of the s-shaped bridge of the Schenker brothers V) during Rock you like a hurricane. They also had worked on the arrangement of this song, making it their own. Whereas on the last tour it was Scorpions cover with Wayne doing the solo. Now Michael also had a part in it.
After 90 minutes the show was over, with only one encore (lights out). Though blackout was on the set list as second encore it was not played. The set was a mixture of Scorpions/UFO/MSG plus a couple of Bridge the gap songs and even a new one from the upcoming album.
Maybe the only low point was that I could hardly hear the vocals. I saw a couple of Schenker shows during the last 20 years and think that this was the best. He is playing so well, his sound is great and the way he is interacting with the audience (he even played with a pick which was handed to him by one of the kids in the audience) shows that he is really enjoying himself.
