From Aural Innovations #35 (January 2007)
Uli Jon Roth made himself famous playing with the Scorpions from 1973-1978, and this is also how I first got hooked on his playing. He has always been one of my favourite guitar players but I have only ever seen him play 2 times (1985 and 1998), so I was quite excited to go to the show. The European MTV awards were going on quite close by with more than 10,000 people but none of them would ever think to come to this show. I only counted 53 people in a place that holds more than 500, so it was very empty. Very poor promotion on this show was the cause. I was told about the show from a friend in California! Anyway, I went early and met some nice Swedish people who came all the way from Karlshamm (2 hours drive) in Sweden.
About 9:15 Uli hit the stage and he was joined by a group of young but talented German musicians on drums, keyboards/guitar, and vocals. Scorpion's bass player Franz Bucholtz was on the bass! He opened with the phenomenal Sky Overture and the visuals were great. A new song called Land of Now was next and the young vocalist came out. Next up was We'll Burn the Sky and this sounded fantastic. The sound was great in the venue and Uli was just simply amazing to watch. Firewind, from the same titled LP, was next, and this is a great song with a killer guitar solo. The only song from Beyond the Astral Skies, Why, was played, and this is a cool ballad of sorts. I was totally shocked to hear I've Got To Be Free from the Taken By Force LP. Enola Gay was next and this was a long heavy track with a jam in it that included a small bit of 3rs Stone from the Sun. Another brand new song called Magic Word was next and this had a really great guitar riff and featured the new band showing off their chops! The whole rest of the set was Scorpion's songs, so I was pretty blown away to get to hear Sails of Charon, Virgin Killer, Polar Nights (all the members took solos and this included a blues jam without Uli). The set ended with a great version and jam on the song Dark Lady. I was a little surprised that the band came out for any encores as there were only about 40 people now but they did. In fact they played 3 songs. Pictured Life, Catch your Train and ending with All along the Watchtower! A fucking great 2 hour concert!
Reviewed by Scott Heller