It don't bother me
It don't mean a thing!
Just let your mind be free!..
HTP, 'Losing My Head'
Encores:
Well, first of all let me tell you: Geroi Rocka ( ) isn't actually translated into English as 'Heroes of Fate' as some quite influential sources like Glenn Hughes Official Site used to claim. The source of confusion is that in Russian, the word 'rok' () has at least two meanings: the first being, absolutely correctly, 'fate' (tho more with the sense of 'doom', like in the phrase 'zloy rock' ( ) - 'ill fortune'), and the second - rock music. So, the festival was called Heroes of Rock and was dedicated to the National Champions' Day - it is a celebration in honour of the military men, but generally, as military service in Russia is still compulsory, it is thought of as a day when all males are congratulated.
Who cares, anyway :)
The worst point of the evening for me was that my dear friend and collaborator Rattlesnake, who is along with me one of the driving forces behind the Dream Chaser - Russian JLT Fan Site, could not attend the show. Anyway, mobile communications helped me realise his spiritual presence. :)
This account combines my impressions of the show itself and interesting unseen details I have gotten from reliable sources...
As usual, the promotion was almost unnoticeable, reducing the event to strictly underground status. Of cource, it may be helpful to a point, since only the most devoted fans of the three bands present attended and there were quite a lot of locations to choose from. Well, to be honest, there were quite a bunch of devoted Nazareth fans, probably some Slade aficionados, but few real HTP fans - the audience comprised mainly those who value Joe & Glenn as members of DP, Rainbow and Sabbath. Which is in my arrogant opinion totally wrong, but it's only my opinion...
Anyway, the venue was half full.
Speaking of Slade... I've always loved the band, I mean their music. I didn't ever care for their reformations and lineup changes, nor could I have ever imagined to see any of their lineups live. So I cannot say who played there on that night, altho I've read it somewhere...
It's the songs that touch me, and contrary to what I normally expect from a band whose show I attend, I wished to hear good ol' rock'n'roll. And oldies were what the set consisted of, so everyone was satisfied.
Well I was a bit surprised they didn't play 'Ooh La La in LA', but they more than made up for it by performing my two alltime faves, 'Far Far Away' & 'Run Run Away', and finishing their performance with 'My Oh My'.
The band was quite cheerful and entertaining to watch as well.
Nazareth were next. You know, Love Hurts, their staple (not written by the band, BTW), was one of the crucial songs that led me into rock'n'roll. But I haven't heard any more than 4 other songs of theirs - Dan Maccaferty's voice is simply not my cup of tea. Sorry.
Well after one hour and a half of soundcheck (involving only the drummer who was later to be seen lingering around the pit while HTP played their set) it would have been criminal for Nazareth to sound badly. And they did indeed sound very good - and very heavy!.. But the fact they had the best sound this evening does not mean it was outstanding, or whatever.
I wasn't really inclined to explore Nazareth's music at such an earpiercing volume that made Dan's voice totally unbearable for me. The music was quite nicely heard from the bar. I don't drink anything stronger than beer, and I don't drink any alcohol outside of my home, so I restricted myself to tea. At double costs, sure!
The most impressive member of the band appeared to be their young guitarist. Very technical and modern. He added that metal touch to the band's sound, which made Maccaferty sound a tad like Udo Dirkschneider (whom I coincidentally don't really like, save for his early days with Accept. And again, I don't listen to them, it's just his voice was a voice and not a shriek then... arrogant opinion of mine, that's a trademark of mine. Eh?)
When I decided to get back into the hall, Nazareth were already finishing, playing 'Love Hurts' and 'We Are Animals'... yes I like these songs. And this was when I noticed that the vision from the 'pit' is much better... but the sound is way worse. Not that good up there, as a matter of fact, but kinda awful down here...
So Nazareth made off, and HTP technicians started creeping upon the stage. Worth mentioning is the fact that the very beginning of the show was delayed as, as it was announced, there appeared problems with the organ HTP were supposed to use.
One of the technicians, the most active, began with sticking JJ's set of pedals to the stage, and Jocke himself turned up, twisted several knobs on his amp and vanished again. The keyboardist and the drummer (Kjell Haakan Alexis Haraldson, and Per Thomas Broman, respectively - known as Kjell whose surname Glenn could not recall during a GHPG chat and Thomas Broman, respectively :))) spent much more time on their instruments. As DP.ru reported, Kjell was almost forced to play a synth he'd seen for the first time in his life (logistics fail, unfortunately), so Roxx Music - the promoter - had to deliver an antique Hammond around 40 thousand pound worth.
No one could hear it well enough, anyway, during the actual performance.
But during the soundcheck there was still hope. BTW, after Thomas performed a short solo, some fan exclaimed: 'Davai esche!' ('Go on!') You know, long soundchecks really make fans starve for some music.
Mark Wexler could be seen cruising around, looking quite preoccupied, as a manager supposed to be.
Then that technician produced a bass - a four stringed one. When I saw Glenn rip it up Nov 23rd (23 must be Glenn's Moscow lucky number, thought I) 2001 as the singer/bassist of a power trio (Shane Gaalas - drums, JJ Marsh - guitar) - as close to Trapeze as it was possible, Hughes was wielding a five stringed bass. Then two other axes were checked - one I recognized as belonging to Jocke, a cream coloured Strat, and the other looked like, you know, flashy - Gibson of some claret colour, from what I know about guitars. I am more of a keyboards/drums freak, you know...
While testing the mikes, the techician (who BTW had played all the guitars briefly and not that bad) not only pronounced Jocke's name as it is supposed to be pronounced, but said something in a language that I identified as Swedish. So he must be Swedish himself, and so his name must be Roger Lennart Albinson (I wonder why all Swedes have such extra long full names?..).
Oh! How Jocke's name should be pronounced? You know, I possess only a rudimentary command of Swedish, which is a shame as I have Swedish roots myself, but I know for sure that 'jo' stands for 'yu', if we use English to reproduce the sound. So it is 'Yu-kee', first syllable stressed. And if after this any one of you ever dares say 'Jocke' as if it was written in English!.. Yes, Jens ('Yens') Johansson and any other Swedish Johansson you can think of is 'Yu-anson'. Right.
Back to the topic.
Let the show begin...
The guys kicked off with Hold On, carried on with You Can't Stop Rock'n'Roll... After which I realised: I ain't here for trying to hear the guys. I am here to see them. So I rushed downstairs and found a cozy place where I could see everything and did not expose myself to danger of being swept away by the wall of sound. 'If life's a radio, crank up to ten' - the soundman, must be some Kiss fan, did indeed crank the volume up to the maximum. Which led to totally awful results. Any high notes, and there were plenty of them, produced an incredible interference of sound waves. This overload and distortion was getting to the point of becoming noisecore (click-click-click, weeeeeheeee, peep-peep-peeep, urrrr, urrr...), and wall-shattering loudness forced some of the fans to experience hearing problems for several days after the show.
Fortunately not me.
Down in the pit, I was not forced to see the deadpan faces of those DP & Rainbow fans who were not excited by HTP's own music at all. These are the people for whom Joe and the management had left a lot of so called 'oldies' in the setlist, thus depriving Glenn of performing, and crazy HTP fans like me of hearing, more new tunes. If you ask me, most of the HTP material, especially the HTP 2 record, is much stronger than anything Ritchie Blackmore ever wrote. I am not a Blackmore fan at all, save for his work with Candice Night, so I am biased for sure.
But even diehard prog rock freaks like me can get mellowed enough by such an outstanding start, that we can bear with Death Alley Driver. I even liked it.
Glenn swept his fluffy black hat aside at that point - obviously he was getting hot. BTW the way the guys looked was special on its own. Glenn had that musketeer hat on, cool sunglasses (dunno about a pocketful of backstage passes...), a black suit with golden ornament, including a stylish butterfly on his jacket - I love his sense of fashion! His long hair brough back the complete illusion of Cal Jam - as his movements and amazing grace didn't change since those 1974 days...
The Cal Jam association was supported by the big screens on which the musicians can be seen, often in a way that reminded of the Cal Jam video - transparent combinations of different angles.
As for Joe... I have to admit, I'd thought he wasn't really photogenic. He turned out to be even more unphotogenic than I'd thought. Which basically means he looks absolutely amazing in reality! Very handsome and charming. Joe was dressed very unpretentiously - black leather pants, a shirt that seemed vaguely familiar - I might have seen it in some pics. Joe's hair looked fairer than on film as well. How he gets by with a fringe of that length... :)
Jocke was dressed all in black - playing Blondmore once again. What a role :) As for me, JJ's abilities are undisputed, he's a player in the same league as Thrall, Bolin, Galley and Gilmour, especially as far as versatility, soulfulness and expression are concerned!
And after all, Jocke 'JJ' Marsh is Jocke 'JJ' Marsh - an amazing guitarist with his own style. Nuff said.
As for his socks' colour some acquaitances of mine were so curious about - bellbottoms are of no help in noticing it, but his boots were orange :) His hair looked much more shaggy than the last time I had seen him live, but still platinum blonde... one of those few people who look actually better off blonde than dark-haired.
Kjell was barely invisible behind the cabinets, dressed in black again and as hairy as a death metal performer. Thomas, all wet through the second song, had some blue t-shirt on.
Image analysis over.
Back to the music! And it is a great moment to return, as Death Alley Driver was followed by Losing My Head!.. It is one of my alltime fave songs! Totally mindblowing! BTW it was during this song that it became clear, who that Gibson belonged to - Joe Lynn. He was an almost full time rhythm guitarist for the whole show and even traded solos with Jocke during this song.
Glenn played another mindblowing rendition of Mistreated (one of the few Blackmore songs that imho has a right to stay in the setlist). Then he invited Joe onstage to sing a song 'you all know very well'. Sure we know 'Street of Dreams' like the back of our hands. BTW it's a ballad only in the studio.
Joe thanked the public once again in an almost accent-free Russian. 'Remember...', said he then, but decided to take a different approach,'Hey Glenn, won't you sing us a little song? Remember Tommy Bolin?'(This is when I really felt an urge to scream 'Yeah!' out loud, and I was unsure how many voices joined mine).
The 'little song' turned out to be Gettin' Tighter, played according to the same concept as three years ago: with an amazing funky jam section and a vocal improvisation, part of which was accompanied by the drums only.
A short bass/vocal ad lib lead into You Keep On Moving. Of course I had heard this all before, live. But with a different drummer and without a keyboard player (one of the few moments when Kjell could actually be heard). Glenn asked the audience to sing along. And sing we did :)
'Now welcome Joe, everybody!' Glenn and Jocke were done with their mini tribute to Tommy Bolin (rest in peace, we miss you). So Joe goes like (very modestly), 'Well you know this one' Oh sure we do! One more oldie, Stormbringer! The part of my conscience which wasn't entirely allured by the fact of HTP stuff having been played started thinking about 'how many more times'... But this part had to shut up immediately because the guys shared the verses, and Joe did the first. Again with a guitar strapped on.
Ah no, that ain't exactly like it used to be. And that is good.
Before plunging into Stormbringer, the band either accidentally or on purpose started playing the riff from 'I Surrender' but cut it down short. As 'I Surrender' was what followed, I guess purpose had nothing to do with it. Joe pulled off an impressive performance.
Then Glenn exclaimed something in the vein 'Joe Lynn, what a great chap'; if I got it wrong, blame the acoustics for that. The great chap himself started introducing the band which was equally inaudible, but you know the band already, so we'll omit this part.
'This is what we call rock' - and they did indeed Ride the Storm! Joe took on the second part in the end of Glenn's verse, and did it marvellously. The guys really have their harmonies together. Something like KK Downing / Glenn Tipton on the vocals!
Someone set a paper aeroplane flying towards the stage at the point. Usually people do it here during DP's 'The Aviator' but it was anyway cool.
Afterwards the guys pretended to be leaving the stage. Jocke caught a bunch of flowers and handed them over to Joe for waving :)
We didn't have to wait long for the encores. The three songs were chosen almost perfectly. Surely I could do with some other song than 'Spotlight Kid' ('Dream Chaser' would have been incredible, but - wishful thinking). But even the played-to-death Kid went down fine. And the majority of the audience were genuinely happy. Well it's not that I caught their vibe and turned that appreciative. It's just that the first song the guys played as encore was Devil's Road. Enough to make me swallow even Smoke on the Water (but fortunately, they didn't do it in Moscow!)
'Well I think everyone knows the song', established Glenn, and the guys kicked off into Burn. Joe did the backing vocals and played rhythm guitar again. I'd thought they share the verses like they did with Stormbringer but Glenn did it all by himself. And finely he did. Somehow neither the studio version of Burn done by Glenn and found among the bonus tracks on 'From Now On...', not his live rendition off 'Burning Japan Live' seem to impress me, but live, these days, it's a completely different animal. I heard it for the second time as encore, and for the second time I was mesmerised.
And this time Joe & Glenn enhanced the song with a vocalization similar to that which can be found on 'Make Your Move' by Rainbow.
So it was finally the time to say goodbye; and time to go home, shaking off the volume that seemed to absorb you. But well...
I live for rock'n'roll, I never look back, as Rob Halford so wisely put it...
So thanks to HTP for giving us a chance for happy smiles and an evening of wonderful music.
Funky Deuce
Copyright Funky Deuce @ Dream Chaser, 2004
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