"Z Rock"-Festival 2001

Mannheim, Capitol

08.09.2001

Bad times for the "Heavy Metal or no Metal at all, whimps and posers leave the hall"-fraction: The "Z Rock"-Festival which annually takes place in Manchester, England was ready to go in Mannheim, Germany. Therefore there was Melodic Rock to the end - a style of music which was in the Eighties at home in the charts, but nowadays more or less is located in the underground. Like the music some of the spectators of the festivals had already met better days - especially some of the ladies who were ignoring the actual beauty-condition and appeared in their old outfits and gave us a rather monstrous impression.

But this was no problem when SEVEN WISHES entered the stage because everybody was blinded by the sparkling of their stage-outfit. While guitarist Anthony Cedergren was rather passive in his actions, bass-player Tony Westgard and singer Pelle Andersson were posing like melodic-men are supposed to do - even there were only 150 people present at that time. SEVEN WISHES played a good show which they closed with DOKKENs ›Unchain The Night‹. But their real bonus the Swedish band had hidden in the back of the stage: drum-lady Linda Gustafsson was beating up her set with power and grace.

When CONTAGIOUS entered the stage everything sounded more fat, but except from that the band gave us the image of a grey mouse: The stage-acting was lame, and the band was dressed up in normal black clothes. That's why the gig became boring after a while even though the musical side of the performance was very good.

From DREAMHUNTER we saw again something posing-like: Singer Stig Gunnarsson brought along his nicest glittering jacket, his sunglasses and styled his hair with wet-gel. The highlight of a musically excellent show with impressing backing-vocals was the track ›The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter‹. But also DREAMHUNTERs performance was rather passive, and only guitarist Olle Zimmerman was able to show his enthusiasm also on stage.

Unfortunately two bands had to cancel their appearance at "Z Rock": the British band SHY and the TALISMAN-follow-up-band HUMANIMAL, because bass-player Marcel Jacob have had an motorcycle-accident. But the first band that was hired as an replacement gave us one of the highlights of the festival: DEMON. They opened their set with the title-song of their '83-album »The Plague«, and singer Dave Hill looked in his short pants and bathing-shoes like he would not really belong onto the stage. Also his quite crazy performance was not without problems: For a song like ›Sign Of A Madman‹ it was quite adapting, but for ›Remembrance Day‹, which was going right under your skin, it didn't fit. Except from that DEMON did not pick the best songs from their latest album »Spaced Out Monkey«: They played the title-song as well as ›Streetwise Cowboy‹. But it was fun to see Dave Hill acting one time like a monkey, the other time like Clint Eastwood. But except from these little drawback the Brits played an excellent show, which was by far better than their appearance at the "Wacken Open Air" the year before.

Then it was time for the show of one of the best melodic-bands of this planet: VON GROOVE. And they met our expectation, even it was quite easy to see that the band is lacking live-experience and is more at home in the studio. Singer Mladen Alexander for example had a stack with his lyric-sheet lying on the monitor-speakers. But that did not keep him from jumping into the audience to check out two beautiful blond girls closer, and he also sang a few lines of JOURNEYs ›Don't Stop Believing‹ into the song ›Lily‹. It was easy to see, that the band was enjoying themselves on stage, and so it was no problem, that there was some help needed: Especially parts of the backing-vocals were without doubt not sang live. But still a very good show, which VON GROOVE were closing with ›Helter Skelter‹ from the BEATLES.

Now the other recently booked band entered the stage and gained a very good response from the audience: JADED HEART. They showed up as the most professional and tight group of the festival and could even teach their colleagues something about groove. Therefore until the encore, which was ›Help‹ from the BEATLES, there were a lot of dancing girls in the audience, who gave in this way their gratitude to front-man Michael Bormann and the band. All a sudden during the show even some guys started to fall on their knees, shouting "Micha, Micha". Very dangerous, Mister Bormann…

Next in line was the first show of ENUFF Z'NUFF in Germany. Guitarist and singer Donnie showed up liked an angel, completely dressed in white and with bare feet. Meanwhile his partner bass-player Chip had chosen an incredible hat and colourful pants. The band kicked the show off with ›Revolution‹ from the BEATLES - it really seemed like it was the duty of every band to cover a BEATLES-track. But talking about ENUFF Z'NUFF this is more than okay, because the band is often regarded as the New Age-version of the Liverpool-band with distorted guitars. ENUFF Z'NUFF came to reign their audence and they even re-converted musicians to fans: SEVEN WISHES-drum-girl Linda was partying to ecstasy in the frontrow. But when a male fan entered the stage to kiss Donnie it was for sure not the thing, that he has been dreaming of… Unfortunately the band had to cut their set by 15 minutes because they started their show too late. Because of that the audience became extremely angry, and many people left the venue after the ENUFF Z'NUFF-gig.

The comeback-show of the TYGERS OF PAN TANG was supposed to be the highlight of the festival, but the band suffered a terrible crash: The new band with the only original member Robb Weir acted without passion on stage. The reason for that might have been the fact that only 150 fans had stayed until the TYGERS-show. Above that former STANGEWAYS-singer Tony Liddell ("armed" with ridiculous sun-glasses) was singing horribly. At the end of the show there were only 30 people left. A dozen of them seemed to enjoy the show while you could read the horror in the faces of the others. That's why the band did not play the complete set they had planned. We had experienced the definite end of a legend.

But there was a nice end to the "Z Rock"-festival: Close to the merchandise-stand musicians from four of the bands played a spontaneous jam-session. Led by Michael Bormann and his acoustic-guitar they sang ›Wanted: Dead Or Alive‹ from BON JOVI. But a disappointment was the number of people that came to the "Z Rock"-festival: There were only 500, who showed up to support the bands. It will be hard for the Melodic Rock to come back to the success of the old days, when fans prefer to hang around in front of the TV instead of going to such an festival where they get almost twelve hours of their music.

Stefan Glas

Photos: Stefan Glas

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››››› weitere Artikel über CONTAGIOUS (GB) ›››››

››››› weitere Artikel über DEMON (GB) ›››››

››››› weitere Artikel über DREAMHUNTER (S) ›››››

››››› weitere Artikel über ENUFF Z'NUFF ›››››

››››› weitere Artikel über JADED HEART (D, Duisburg) ›››››

››››› weitere Artikel über SEVEN WISHES (S) ›››››

››››› weitere Artikel über TYGERS OF PAN TANG ›››››

››››› weitere Artikel über VON GROOVE ›››››

››››› weitere Artikel über "Z Rock"-Festival ›››››

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