Michael Schenker Shepherds Bush Empire 12-5-12

First up was Exit State from Lancashire who I have to say I hadn’t heard of. It seems by all the flyers that were handed out they have released 2 albums “Death Of A Rockstar” and “Black Veins” and certainly with songs like “Bad Days” and “Rockstar” they got an ever increasing response from the crowd.

Their 30 minute set was very good. Muscular hard rock but always melodic with some shredding guitar from Matt Harris.

Led by vocalist and second guitarist Roy Bright they are one to look out for and the one new song played “Elastic” shows real promise.

I last saw Michael Schenker support The Scorpions way back in 2007 when he frankly was a mess and being a long time fan I was so hoping that he was back to his best.

After a ludicrously long intro tape they kicked straight into “Into The Arena” and all our fears faded away. Michael looked well and was grinning away and his playing was excellent. He played with all the enthusiasm and passion we had all hoped for.

Over the course of an hour and three quarters we all went on a musical journey through Michael’s life.

Here’s what they played:

Into The Arena

Armed And Ready

Lovedrive

Another Piece Of Meat

Cry For The Nations

Let Sleeping Dogs Lie

Coast To Coast

Assault Attack

Before The Devil Knows Your Dead

Lights Out

On And On

Let It Roll

Shoot Shoot

Rock You Like A Hurricane

Rock Bottom

Encores

Holiday

Blackout

Doctor Doctor

Michael has toured the world now with 3 different line ups on this tour and for this leg we had a real gem.

2 of his former colleagues from the Scorpions joined him. Francis Bucholz on bass and Herman Rarebell on drums. Both seemed so happy to be there and were both welcomed like long lost friends by the crowd.

Michael’s long time friend Wayne Findlay was on guitar and keyboards and he did a very good Matthias Jabs impersonation on both “Hurricane” and “Blackout”.

On vocals we had Dougie White who I have been a long time fan of his work with Rainbow, Cornerstone and this year with La Paz.I have to say I felt that especially on The Scorpions numbers he struggled a little with the higher pitch of the original Klaus Meine vocal.

We had only one song from the new cd but no one seemed to care. Michael riffed and soloed to his hearts content and his one extended solo of the night on “Rock Bottom” was simply brilliant.

This one solo alone showed he is back to his best and the rock world can only be better for it.

We all spilled into the night just happy that Michael is well and back to his best.

Great stuff.

All photos copyrighted to Stephen Fourie  (with thanks)