Reviews Archiv 238

hmmmm... slowly it gets a bit awkward. Why? Because lately I've been so lucky to have experienced so many great concerts. And here again, we've got an event, where I did not regret to have attended it.
Although I have once again to use the old speak - it's a long time ago since their last real success.
Founded in 1980, this american band has been discovered at the Live Aid Spectacle in 1985. We all know their hitsingles 'All You Zombies', 'Johnny B' and 'Satellite', which are great tunes. The strength of the Hooters always have been the combination of Pop, Rock and Folk elements. In the middle of the nineties unfortunately the star dropped down, and the band split. But the two musical heads of the group Eric Bazilian and Rob Hyman were and still are working as songwriters for artists like Cyndi Lauper, Ricky Martin or Joan Osbourne. Eric Bazilian lately worked on the new Scorpions Album 'Humanity -Hour 1'.
In 2001 the reunion of the Hooters came along, followed by a very successful tour throughout Germany, Sweden and Switzerland two years later. And now, the band is back again with a new album in their luggage named 'Time Stand Still'. This Cd also includes a well done coverversion of Don Henleys 'The Boys Of Summer'. - Here in Germany the Cd will be out shortly, but you could buy it at the gig tonight already.

Right in the beginning I have to apologize for my delay at this night. So I missed the first supportact - Ex-Supertramp guitarist Richard Palmer-James.

But I am on the spot in the photopit for the second supportact named 'The Urge' who come from Great Britain. Yeeesssss, there we go again with one of those hopeful great Next Generation Rockbands, who carry the heritage of Rock'n'Roll from the past to the future. They belong to these bands like The Answer, who also come from Britain and Wolfmother from Australia.
But now it comes.....

The Urge were already a band in the sixties, - yep no kiddin'. At that time John Miles founded the band. - The great John Miles, who wrote history with his famous song 'Music'. Nowadays this artist belongs to the ensemble of every year's Nokia Night of The Proms tour right before each xmas.
40 years after the first era of the Ureg, John Miles, I mean John Miles jun. has recruited this band again, and the sound better than ever. It's solid Blues - Rock'n'Roll what those Youngsters play up there in the style Daddy Miles has started then. But, will the Urge 2007 ever get out of this jungle of countless new acts? Because their music ain't anything new or innovative or even extraordinary. But it is good. At least live it's groovin' like hell, as we say so. Wonderful to listen to, how the youth carry on with the stuff, what their parents started. And our local audiance luv's 'em for that, that's a matter of fact. - Please carry on like that, maybe you guys will be lucky on day and get the goal. It won't be easy, but who knows..... I can only advice everybody to have a listen to their new CD.

http://www.theurge-rock.com/

... and the Hooters storm the stage, inclusively the harmonica, which is sort of a deadringer and slogan for the folkrocker from America. And the audiance stands on their heads - same second. The Backstage Werk here in Munich is well filled with aprox. 1.000 fans. And you can make out, that there are not only the old one's, but also some youngsters, who have been animated by their parents, or got the idea themselves to check out something new. Not new though, because what we wanna hear is once again is ‚Johnny B’, ‚All You Zombies’ and ‚Satellite’, songs which are 20 years old and still sound up to date. Eric Bazilian and Rob Hyman share the frontman position equally, what's up to leadvocals, guitar, Keyboard and accordion. Nobody stands behind here and despite the fact, that those guys must be in the late fourties, or around fifty, they jump around on stage, that every sportsman would get jealous about this what's up to physical condition.

You can easily make out, that they do their job with total dedication and a lot of heart, and they have still fun playing live and rock the walls down. We get pulled along with the rhythm and give back a lot of enthusiasm and applause, which again, encourages the guys up there even more. It's like a magic circle. At some point they leave their shirts and jackets behind, because it's getting to hot in here. This is party, this is Rock'n'Roll. Easy Listening with a huge portion of drive, some folk and a touch of nostalgy. And it gets down a 100%.
Well done and a great show - no doubt about this. There is only one little thing what makes me thinking.....
Will the Hooters have a future within the current fast living music landscape? I'm not quite sure about it, but they would definately deserve it....
http://www.thehooters.net/

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