The Metal Files

SCORPIONS – RATT

San Antonio, TX July 23, 2010

Amazing.  In a word that’s the best way to describe this show.  But as always, I will go into more detail.

The day starts out with me picking up Christine and Charlotte, piling their pretty selves in my car and heading 75 miles south to San Antonio to the AT&T Center.  Since it’s a Friday we allowed some extra time to

Christine, Charlotte, Yours Truly

get through Austin and SA’s traffic.  Good idea.  The doors opened at 6:30 and we arrived at about 5:45.  Hung out in the parking lot, had a beer, talked music and talked a lot of BS.  Good times.

We hop in line and 15 minutes later we were in the door.  Of course we head to the merch booth to check out the shirts.  Both Ratt’s and the Scorpion’s shirts were pretty fugly so I didn’t pick one up.  That’s a rarity, me no picking up a concert shirt.  We’re inside, grab a beer and go find out seats.  I of course looked at the seating chart as I was buying the tickets but didn’t really realize how good they were.  My photographer friend, Jinger, was behind us when she wasn’t in the photo pit shooting both bands.

The place was filling in pretty well and I believe it was sold out by the end of the night.  San Antonio is a legendary town for metal.  So many bands from around the world got their first US break there.  Scorpions and Ratt were 2 of those bands.  Sure Ratt was popular in the LA scene on the early 80s, but SA radio really pumped them and got them out of California.  The SA crowds are great too.  They love metal there.  It’s pretty awesome.

Warren, Carlos and Robbie

The lights go down and on comes Ratt.  Thanks to the interwebz I had seen the setlist that they have been running for this tour and was pretty stoked for it.  Morning After!  Alright!  Stephen Pearcy was never known for being a great singer and he’s still not, but he did a pretty good job last night.  The band consisted of Pearcy, Warren DeMartini, Bobby Blotzer, Robbie Crane and Carlos Cavazo(!).  Carlos!  I’ve always been a huge fan of the first 3 Quiet Riot albums that Carlos was on.  Was fortunate enough to meet and hang out with him in 98.  Nice guy, fine guitarist.  Ratt sounded great overall.  Warren is definitely a hotshot player.  Robbie’s been in the band for a long time now and did a fine job.  He’s got strong backing vocal skills too.  Seeing Ratt was a bit special for me as I had never seen them before.  “Back in the day” they came to town with Poison and Bon Jovi and I refused to pay to see either of those bands.  Blech!  So this was a perfect bill for me to see them on, even if it was 20+ years after their heyday.  The only song I didn’t care for in their setlist was Way Cool Jr.  That song sucked then and it still sucks now.

Here’s the setlist as I recall it:

1. You’re In Love
2. Lay It Down
3. Lack Of Communication
4. Loving You’s A Dirty Job
5. I Want A Woman
6. Best Of Me
7. Slip Of The Lip
8. Nobody Rides For Free
9. Back For More
10. Way Cool Jr.
11. Wanted Man
12. The Morning After
13. Round And Round

Damn fine setlist.

RATT says goodbye

After the Ratt set, the girls and I go out and grab a drink and they run into some friends of theirs who ended up joining us for the Scorpions set.

The music on the PA at rock concerts has always been an interesting subject of discussion.  Before the Scorps came on, they were paying all Nickelback.  It was pretty annoying.  Then Back In Black comes on (very

Klaus and Rudy...Sting of the Tail!

loudly) and of course people start cheering.  I never cared for that song but it’s fun seeing how amped people get anytime it gets played in an arena.  20 seconds into it, the lights go down, the songs ends and here comes Rudy Schenker walking on the stage to open the show.  The crowd goes apeshit…including me.  Rudy!  RUDY!  The rest of the band quickly follows and they open up with Sting In The Tail from the new album.

The band sounded great all night.  Klaus’ voice was clean and powerful even though you can tell that they were playing everything tuned down.  But for a dude that’s 62, he did a fine job.  They all did.  They have some Polish bass player named Pawel Maciwoda and James Kottak on drums.  Kottak is a maniac.  One of those showy type drummers, but solid as a rock and did a great job.  He did a drum solo and had a rather humorous synchronized video of him in a bunch of different live recreations of Scorpions albums.  For me the video was more interesting than the solo, but the guy obviously has a great sense of humor.

I’ve seen the Scorpions twice before.  Once in 1991 on the Crazy World Tour and the other in 2002 with DIO and Deep Purple.  This show was probably better than the 98 show but hard to top the 91 show.  I was a little

Matthias

letdown that they played nothing from the Uli Roth era as in recent years.  They had been doing either In Trance or We’ll Burn the Sky, but nothing on this tour…their final tour.  In general it didn’t matter.  They were great.  They did Send Me An Angel and dedicated it ti Ronnie James Dio.  For Angel and Holiday, Rudy and Matthias had a Flying V and Explorer electric/acoustics!  It made me giggle a bit but it was pretty cool.

One great surprise was at the beginning of their encore.  Klaus talked about how special San Antonio was to helping the Scorpions then they went right into Still Loving You.  This is the only show on the tour, as I can tell, that this song was played.  We freaked out.  They dropped Winds of Change (thank God).  That song always annoyed me.  The finished up with No One Like You and Rock You Like A Hurricane.  I would have stayed for another 2 hours of music had then been able to do it.  The energy from the crowd and from the band were pretty amazing.  In recent years the only show that rivaled this one was Iron Maiden in 2008.

The setlist:

1. Sting Of The Tail
2. Make It Real
3. Bad Boys Running Wild
4. The Zoo
5. Coast To Coast
6. Loving You Sunday Morning
7. The Best Is Yet To Come
8. Send Me An Angel
9. Holiday
10. Raised On Rock
11. Tease Me Please Me
12. Dynamite
13. Kottack Attack (Drum Solo)
14. Blackout
15. Six String Sting (Matthias rocks out)
16. Big City Nights
17. Still Loving You (encore)
18. No One Like You (encore)
19. Rock You Like A Hurricane (encore)

The drive home was long and both of the girls fell asleep.  It was an incredible night for  a lot of reasons.

Upon returning home to downtown Austin, I walked across the street and caught the last 2 songs from Jason McMaster’s Killa Maul Metallica tribute.  Awesome as always.  Slipped across the street from there and ate a slice of pizza, drank half a beer, came home and went to bed.

Wonderful night with wonderful people.

Long live the Scorpions!

Scorpions

The Zoo

Holiday