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Scorpions
A Concert Review |
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As I slowly get back into covering concerts, one of the
venues I was always curious about, though haven’t seen a
concert at yet, was the Charter One Pavilion on Northerly
Island here in Chicago (also the former home of a way-cool,
little airport,
Meigs Field,
that was destroyed in the cover of darkness), and on a cool
August night I was finally given a chance to see a concert
there, none other than the
Scorpions,
who, 29 years earlier to the day, played their first show in
Chicago, at an event called Chicago Fest. This being my
first trip to Charter One Pavilion, I have to say that it’s
a pretty good venue to see a show, with some quality sound,
but if just the sight of a spider freaks you out, the place
might actually be your worst nightmare. Luckily for me,
though, I can deal with a spider or a few hundred crawling
on the chairs around me, and with the weather being on the
cool side, the mosquitoes were kept at bay (or maybe they
knew better than to infiltrate the den of spider-dom), and I
got to see a fantastic show of a band that I honestly didn’t
realize has been around, technically, over 40 years.
Out promoting themselves and their latest CD, "Humanity
Hour 1," the Scorpions showed me that people might be amazed
at the spryness of "The Rolling Stones," but damn, the core
members of Klaus Meine on lead vocals, Matthias Jabs on
guitar, and Rudolf Schenker on guitar, while technically a few years shy of the
Stones’ fellows, bounce around the stage just as much, and I
think the Scorpions’ boys actually have it a little harder,
what with their music being more of a metal nature, and even
though it was my virgin Scorpion’s concert, I don’t think
time has slowed them down one bit from that show they put on
in 1979.
The boys opened with the title track, "Hour 1," off their
latest CD, and an hour an a half set spotlighted classics
the generic fan will know and love, some older songs that
brought the band a little more into the American mainstream,
and you could tell that the show had its fair share of
hard-core fans because those were the ones fist-pumping and
singing along to the new stuff, like the aforementioned
"Hour 1," the fantastic "Humanity," and I think the rest of
the crowd realized the Scorpions are still kicking ass in
their recordings with the heavy hitting "321." But the band
also realizes that not everyone will know the new songs,
that the fans just want to rock, and the Scorpions’ boys
just looked like they were having the funnest of times on
stage, that they have this live performance thing down, and
wanted to do their best to give the fans their money’s
worth.
How do you do that? Well, you mix in a little "Make it
Real" and a little "Loving You Sunday Morning." You also
throw tons of drumsticks into the audience, started during
"The Zoo" (which was great, and I guess that shouldn’t come
as a surprise) and >
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