Farewell, Scorpions, Farewell
Dave, Brandon, Greg, Dallin, and I saw The Scorpions the other night on what has been billed as their farewell tour. Which means we will never see them again. Ever.
(Moment of silence)
It was an excellent show. Those guys are some pretty bad dudes and can still rock at 60+ years old (!). Also, they are by far the best heavy metal band who regularly pronounces the word “way” as “wee” and gets away with it. Examples:
- “I realize I missed a day, but I’m too wrecked to care anywee” (Blackout)
- “Where the children of tomorrow dream awee in the wind of change” (Wind of Change)
- “Love, our love just shouldn’t be thrown awee” (Still Loving You)
- “Baby our love will find a wee as long as we believe in love” (Believe In Love)
And of course, the prime example:
- “You better get out of their wee-eee-eee, wee-eee-eee, wee-eee-eee, get out of their wee!” (Bad Boys Running Wild)
Tesla 2010
Tesla opened for the Scorps. Actually, Jackyl opened for both of them with a very forgettable performance. All I remember from them is that the lead singer cut the seat of a stool in half with a chainsaw and it still took him four tries to break the stool. Or was it five? Who opened for Tesla and Scorpions again? See, I said it was forgettable.
I guess that’s unfair. They did have some fans. See the big guy standing up on the right? The guy that was standing up the entire show? Who would basically just jump around and make those devil-horn signs with his hands all night? He seemed to like them. I also think he might have been on crystal meth, but that’s a different story.
Anyway, Tesla put on a great show and sounded really awesome. I wish they would have played longer, but hey, they had to make time for, whatever that band was that came before. Modern Day Cowboy was especially excellent.
But, of course, we were all there to see The Scorpions one last time. They were outstanding. Not the best concert I’ve been to, but top honors in my list are currently co-held by some pretty stiff competition.
Scorpions 2010
Here’s the setlist, borrowed from the review written by a friend of a friend at the local paper:
- Main Set:
- Sting in the Tail
- Make It Real
- Bad Boys Running Wild
- The Zoo
- Coast to Coast
- Loving You Sunday Morning
- The Best is Yet to Come
- Wind of Change
- Raised on Rock
- Tease Me Please Me
- Another Piece of Meat
- Dynamite
- Kottak Attack (Drum Solo)
- Blackout
- Big City Nights
- Encore:
- No One Like You
- Rock You Like a Hurricane
So, it was a pretty good set, but they missed a lot of songs. Here are some of the songs they forgot to play:
- Holiday
- Don’t Make No Promises
- Falling In Love
- Can’t Live Without You
- Arizona
- China White
- Coming Home
- Still Loving You
- Don’t Stop at the Top
- Passion Rules the Game
- Believe In Love
- Crazy World
- Send Me An Angel
- Alien Nation
- Wild Child
- Turn You On
- Lorelei
See, that’s only another 17 songs, which would have put the running time at about three hours, which seems about right. My voice wouldn’t have lasted that long, or my hearing, but what the heck. It’s their last tour, after all.
I guess the reason I get so melancholy and nostalgic about this stuff is that nobody is replacing them. Van Halen, Def Leppard, Journey, and now the Scorps — all these bands are either mostly or completely gone now. All that great music they wrote. There are no good new bands filling in, nobody writing good new music to take up the mantle of these iconic hard rock bands from the 80′s.
Lucky for me, the good bands from days past wrote enough great music that it should get me through the rest of my life. Hopefully.
Rudolf, Klaus, Mattias, and company: Thanks for the memories. We will miss you.
