Sad news: The music world mourns the loss of Ray Manzarek (74), founding Member and keyboarder of The Doors, White Zombie drummer Phil Buerstatte (44) and Uriah Heep bassist Trevor Bolder (63). R.I.P.!
German Hardrockers BERSERKER will donate 18.000€ to the Berlin cancer charity for children on May 25. November 2011 BERSERKER front man Schröder was diagnosed with cancer, now he is cancer-free. In 2012 the band collected money for this charity at their concerts and will also continue to do so in the future. Slayer´s Jeff Hanneman is dead: he passed away at about 11AM on May 2nd near his Southern California home because of liver failure due to an infection after a spider bite. R.I.P. Jeff!
The Siberian Jay music video "I´m Holding" featuring Mikko Sirén from Apocalyptica on drums - we reported about the videoshoot in our "1h with" Special - can be watched here: http://youtu.be/C-hSNurZVcs
Not "Vappu week" but "Nicke Andersson week". Why? Well, first there is his gig with his relatively new group Imperial State Electric today, before we are going to see a tribute band, whose illustrious band members (e.g. from bands like Santa Cruz and Caroline) cover songs of his old band The Hellacopters (read the STALKER review).
Well, let`s start with Tavastia and with Satan Takes A Holiday who like the headliner come from Stockholm and whose sound is partly reminiscent of The White Stripes, e.g. songs like "Who Do You Voodoo?" The package fits, people are partying - and then HE comes on stage: Nicke Andersson! But, no, it`s not showtime yet because first "the lone Emperor" has to build up everything for that. Yes, right: Instead of a roadie, the former The Hellacopters frontman is handling the stage technics himself. Down-to-earth behaviour: We like! Self-explanatory that it doesn`t take a long time until the first wishes for autographs, guitar picks and a smile for photos occur.
The shows starts with the very felicitous ballad "Waltz For Vincent" before "Uh Huh" heats up "Tavastia". The audience is hooked from the start and the setlist covers not only songs from the brandnew Imperial State Electric album "Pop War" like "Sheltered In The Sand", "Can`t Seem To Shake It Off My Mind", "Monarchy Madness" and "Narrow Line", but also compositions from their self-titled debut album such as "Lord Knows I Know That It Ain`t Right", "Redemption`s Gone", "A Holiday From My Vacation" and "Throwing Stones". Especially outstanding is the performance for "Deja Vu", maybe because this song is strongly reminiscent of the good old The Hellacopters times. Yes, the writer of these lines unfortunately never had the pleasure of seeing the "Grande Rock" live on stage...
However: As nice as the show and the audience are, there is one spot of bother tonight - You partly can`t hear the voice of singer and guitarist Nicke. As we will figure out later, it probably depends on where in the audience you are standing if you can hear his voice or only the guitars. But something like that when you are standing during the whole gig in the front row?!? Well, that`s a bit annoying. Nevertheless, the performance itself is flawless, so if Nicke Andersson and his army occupy a club near you, you shouldn`t miss the event...
