Add to Google

Subscribe in NewsGator Online

Mostly Entertainment

entertainment ave!
Read our stuff.

 

  Home    -    Our Blog   -    Our Podcast   -   The Concert Hall    -   The Movie Theater    -   In Your House    -   Stu & The Dude    -   The Alley    -   Mail Us!    -   The Office


Related links at Entertainment Ave!
None yet.

Other Links:
Official Site: www.the-scorpions.com

Scorpions
A Concert Review

August 10, 2008

Charter One Pavilion

Chicago, IL

A Review by
The Dude on the Right
As I slowly get back into covering concerts, one of the venues I was always curious about, though haven’t seen a concert at yet, was the Charter One Pavilion on Northerly Island here in Chicago (also the former home of a way-cool, little airport, Meigs Field, that was destroyed in the cover of darkness), and on a cool August night I was finally given a chance to see a concert there, none other than the Scorpions, who, 29 years earlier to the day, played their first show in Chicago, at an event called Chicago Fest. This being my first trip to Charter One Pavilion, I have to say that it’s a pretty good venue to see a show, with some quality sound, but if just the sight of a spider freaks you out, the place might actually be your worst nightmare. Luckily for me, though, I can deal with a spider or a few hundred crawling on the chairs around me, and with the weather being on the cool side, the mosquitoes were kept at bay (or maybe they knew better than to infiltrate the den of spider-dom), and I got to see a fantastic show of a band that I honestly didn’t realize has been around, technically, over 40 years.

Out promoting themselves and their latest CD, "Humanity Hour 1," the Scorpions showed me that people might be amazed at the spryness of "The Rolling Stones," but damn, the core members of Klaus Meine on lead vocals, Matthias Jabs on guitar, and Rudolf Schenker on guitar, while technically a few years shy of the Stones’ fellows, bounce around the stage just as much, and I think the Scorpions’ boys actually have it a little harder, what with their music being more of a metal nature, and even though it was my virgin Scorpion’s concert, I don’t think time has slowed them down one bit from that show they put on in 1979.

The boys opened with the title track, "Hour 1," off their latest CD, and an hour an a half set spotlighted classics the generic fan will know and love, some older songs that brought the band a little more into the American mainstream, and you could tell that the show had its fair share of hard-core fans because those were the ones fist-pumping and singing along to the new stuff, like the aforementioned "Hour 1," the fantastic "Humanity," and I think the rest of the crowd realized the Scorpions are still kicking ass in their recordings with the heavy hitting "321." But the band also realizes that not everyone will know the new songs, that the fans just want to rock, and the Scorpions’ boys just looked like they were having the funnest of times on stage, that they have this live performance thing down, and wanted to do their best to give the fans their money’s worth.

How do you do that? Well, you mix in a little "Make it Real" and a little "Loving You Sunday Morning." You also throw tons of drumsticks into the audience, started during "The Zoo" (which was great, and I guess that shouldn’t come as a surprise) and >