Last night, I went to see my personal guitar hero Michael Schenker...this time touring with Doogie White on vox, and ex-Scorps Francis Buccholz and Herman Rarebell (which I was excited about for nostalgia reasons).
As I got there, the opening band Gundriver was nearing the end of their set...hadn't heard of them, but immediately recognized Rev Jones (who was playing bass for Schenker last time I saw him) and stood transfixed by his insanity for their remaining couple of otherwise nondescript songs.
As far as the main event...well, it reminded me why I love music so much and I might have had tears in my eyes a couple of times. Schenker has been my favorite guitar player since I was a wee lad and first heard Strangers in the Night, and I've seen him three times before (back in the McAuley/Schenker days, with UFO on the Walk on Water tour, and the last time he was through with "Temple of Rock" (dumb name) with McAuley on vocals). But last night was the first time I feel like I've seen the *true* Michael Schenker. Granted, if you threw some gray ash over him he'd look like an extra from The Walking Dead, but beyond the gaunt physical appearance he seems to be back. He was smiling the whole night, and seemed completely clear and present and connected with the crowd. But most importantly, his playing was impeccable. The "Rock Bottom" solo was a thing of pure beauty...he truly did justice to the SitN version.
The setlist was mostly UFO and Scorpions, with a couple songs from his last album (which were actually quite good...I may need ot pick it up), a new song (promising), and a couple classic MSG tunes (Armed and Ready, Victim of Illusion). Sadly, there was no "Into the Arena" or "Captain Nemo". As far as the band: While Buccholz and Rarebell are sort of the Hill/Holland of German melodic metal, it was a lot of fun to see them, and they seemed to enjoy themselves (I even way overpaid for a copy of Herman Rarebell's book after the show just so I could shake his hand and have him sign it). Wayne Findlay was fine on keys and guitar. And Doogie White was a great frontman...I was impressed. Vocally his tone fit the Scorpions material much better than the UFO stuff, but in terms of crowd interaction and charisma, the dude brought it (and it turns out he's a pretty funny guy, as well).
The moral of the story is: if you have any affinity for Schenker at all, this tour is well worth checking out, and I'm so thrilled to see that Michael appears to be happy and back at the top of his game.
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Good player.
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