Scorpions at the M3 Rock Festival
Early in the day at the M3 Festival, Eddie Trunk broke the news on Twitter that Klaus Meine from the Scorpions was sick, but would perform. I didn’t quite know what to expect at this point, but was a little disappointed that my first (and possibly last) Scorpions show would not have the band at 100%. The show started out with an extended instrumental only version of the Scorpions song “New Generation” from the Unbreakable album.. I don’t know if it was a miscue or what, but they played the song for about five minutes with the stage lights on, and no vocals. It was just weird. I didn’t know what the hell was going on.
The Scorpions obviously had the best stage show. The video screen behind the stage was pretty awesome, and James Kottak’s drum kit was on a rising platform, that was raised over ten feet in the air with chains that were mounted to the floor of the drum riser. It was a pretty cool site. I really got a kick out of watching the band play. Rudolf Schenker and Matthias Jabs were much more animated than I expected them to be. One upon a time, I heard Rudoph Schenker was kind of a shy guy. You would never know it from his stage performance. He was incredible!
Luckily, the Scorpions got their act together and played a blazing set of their classic tunes, including “Blackout”, “The Zoo”, “Rock Me Like a Hurricane”, “Big City Nights”, “Holiday”, “Bad Boys Running Wild”, “Winds of Change”,”Coast to Coast” “Tease Me Please Me” and “Another Piece of Meat” in which the band brought out Vince Neil on vocals to give Klaus a hand. My first thought was, “Oh Great, Here is ANOTHER song that Vince can forget the lyrics too”. Luckily Klaus did most of the singing. Quite honestly, I thought the Scorpions sounded incredible, even though Klaus was not singing up to his normal level. I could tell that he was definitely holding back somewhat, and struggling a little bit, but it did not detract from my enjoyment of the show. A dumbass fan in the front row was giving a Klaus a hard time, and telling him to sing louder. Klaus seemed a little pissed and explained to all of the fans that he was sick, and his voice was shot. He encouraged everyone to sing a long. He was truly doing the best he could. Lets face it , the band could have easily canceled this show, but decided not to. I thought it was cool for them to carry on with the show. I would have been greatly disappointed if they didn’t play. I can’t believe a stupid fan would disrespect the band, and Klaus in this way. I don’t know if it was the extreme heat at M3, or what, but the dumb ass fans seemed to be in abundance in the pit. The front row heckler was not the only knucklehead. A guy in the fourth row, who was easily over 6 foot tall decided to stand on his chair and block our view. Security took care of him after a few songs, but it wasn’t any where soon enough in my opinion. Seriously folks, if you are taller than a freakin’ beanstalk, do you really need to stand on a chair and block other fan’s views?
Aside from the boneheads at the show, I really did enjoy the Scorpions quite a bit. The band performed a few of their new tunes including “Raised on Rock”, “Sting in the Tail” and “The Best Is Yet to Come”. I love their new album, Sting in the Tail, but I probably would have traded one of these songs for “Still Loving You”, but what are you going to do. I enjoyed the Scorpions farewell tour at M3, and I hope and pray that they play near me one more time, before they call it a day. They will be greatly missed when they retire. The Scorpions closed out M3 in fine fashion. I can’t wait until the next festival in 2011!
Check out the pictures and clips of the show below!
came all the way from Australia for this one to see 2 other Australians go up on stage as the ‘people who came the furthest’…wrong!
But anyways was a great show for the entire day.
The guy doing this review must have been a bit wasted because he didnt realise that it wasnt the Scorpions but their techs doing a sound check on the ‘New Generation’ track!!
But he was probably getting excited at hearing something from what is a criminally underrated release and up in the top 3 from this band (and played bloody well by the techs!)
Wish I could get to the US for more of these
A cool perspective. The self-entitled fans that act as you described are the same “fans” who can’t name off the band members of the Scorpions. These are the same “fans” who wear turtlenecks during the Fall and Winter months as well… with little alligators stitched on them.
I agree… Klaus and the Scorpions could have easily called it off due to Klaus not feeling great. Instead, this legendary band put on one HELL of a show! I’ll never forget it myself.
M3 2011 sounds like a trip to me Rockitt!
Stone
Love going to live shows but am getting tired of people behaving as if they are the only ones at the show. Such as the big IDIOT you described. In Pgh. We had fat fifty year old air guitarist just banging in to people around us in the aisle. Really pathetic and drunk. Why I like to go to the smaller venues. You can have youre sheds.