Concert Report by Sylvie and Alain MSG at Kulturfabrik, Krefeld, Germany April 25, 2012 Added on 04/26/2012
Hi Ritchie,
First part of a 4 gigs trip in Germany : Krefeld. After a long time waiting under a cold and heavy rain, we finally managed to get into the venue (Kulturfabrik). First row, just in front of Michael. The support, an english band called Fury starts earlier and plays 45 minutes, the name of the band is appropriated, they played in fury, especially the drummer which looks like a young John Bonham. The guitar player plays great too but the music was... not very consistent, which maybe is normal for a trio.
After the support, MS was scheduled to play at 21.15 and finally started at 22h00 due to technical problems with stage monitors. After a long intro (very long) the first notes of "Into the arena" fills the room. It was loud, very loud (too loud, probably). Francis and Herman were happy to be there and the smile of Francis never left his face during all the set. The traditional "Howler" became the intro for "Armed and ready" and Doogie came on stage, dressed in black, as we were at the front of the stage, we hear just a murmur of the vocals even though Doogie screams at top of his lungs but he sounds ok.
Of course, it was the first gig with this line-up and little mistakes were played but a lots of songs played this night were famous like "Let sleeping dogs lie", "Let it roll", the amazing solo on "on and on". As it is a non MSG Tour, they choosed to play 6 tracks of Scorpions (even songs that were not MS signed, time for Wayne to play the solos on these tracks), 6 tracks of MSG (including the return of the excellent "Assault attack"), 5 UFO tracks and only 1 song of the late "Temple of rock" album. Note that Michael had 2 new guitars, one bright with colors all over the body and one special UFO designed (guitar called "Strangers"), somehow he did not played with the guitars written on the set-list, playing mostly with his B/W Dean Guitar.
This review was written in the long way between Krefeld and Hamburg, second gig of this tour. I'll try to keep you informed on every gig. Sorry for the poor quality of the pictures, taken with a mobile phone during the set.
