This was my 6th Scorpions show, of course the most memorable will always be US Festival '83 in San Bernardino, CA. US Festival also seems to be a special day for the Scorpions as they continue to show footage and discuss this show as a highlight of their career.

Dokken opened for Scorpions.....I own only Breaking the Chains and am familiar with other songs Dokken did. For sure Don Dokken is old!!! His voice is so much better when he sings in the more mellow mode than when he tries to sing like Vince Neil. He looks and sounds like an old rusty Harley dude trying to sing screamo...it did not work...Don, stick to your mellow mode and its much better.

 

Scorpions came on about 9:30pm and played for almost 2 hours. The stage was decent, huge screen in background showing old concert clips, live shots...but the screen was like an old TV set...grainy, unless you are straight in front its difficult to see the image clearly.

Klaus, Rudolf and Matthias all looked great! Certainly not like back in the 80's when they used to run all over the stage...Rudolf pretty much walked back and forth, occasionally "jogged".....Klaus's voice sounded great, Matthias as usual hit all the lead guitar points very well. Pawel is a decent bass player, I prefer Francis Buchholz though...he was better. Although Pawel did throw my wife a few pics..!! James Kottak is a very good rock drummer, did justice to Herman Rarebell's playing.

The setlist is very good.....A lot of Loverdrive, Blackout and Love At First Sting material......I was soooo glad they are playing The Zoo live, such a great song. The new songs are excellent Sting In the Tail (opener) was awesome...one of the highlights was "The Best Is Yet to Come".........Klaus got the crowd into that one very well.

"Blackout" brought out Rudolf wearing a mask of the album cover and his smoking guitar, literally had smoke coming out the back...it was cool.

They finished with "No One Like You" and "Rock You Like A Hurricane"

If this is truely their Farewell Tour then I would have liked more older songs..."Speedys Coming", "Robot Man", "Steamrock Fever"...... would have been nice to hear those classics.

 

They put on a great show for sure...high energy (for their age) musically very accurate. I've been a Scorpions fan since Animal Magnetism and have all their albums up to Face the Heat and the last two...so I am missing a couple...Not seeing Klaus and the boys live anymore is pretty much a bummer for sure, so if you can go see this tour......Its one not to miss.

Here are some pics my wife took.....

 

 

 

 

Double vinyl World Wide Live.....inside the album cover is a wideshot pic of the Scorps on stage at US Festival '83....Heavy Metal Sunday.......I was there in that 350,000 sun-baked crowd.