naive, unprofessional and subjective review of Rock Meets Classic 2014, Mannheim March 18th by Anja F. For THE LEGENDARY...ALICE COOPER Facebook Group Here it finally was, the date of the show I got tickets for, more than half a year ago. First row but quite far sideways. The huge sports arena was about ¾ filled with a strange mixture of people, far from your normal rock audience – the fans that where recognisable as ones where almost all Alice´s, though. There where two big screens right and left of the stage and while we were waiting for the show to begin, we were „entertained“ with a loop of adds and the Carpenters „Top Of The World“ (if I remember correctly) maybe to cool the non-existing frenzy of the waiting audience... After the background noise of the adds had ceased and quite surprisingly, we heared a short prerecorded message with comments from the solo artists and then the curtain fell. The orchestra, rock band and choir singers opened the show with Queens „Show Must Go On“...strange choice for an opening, but sounding great! So here we went... The leader of the rock band, Mat Sinner, who was also the presenter for the rest of the evening, introduced the first solo artist, Midge Ure. His songs Hymn, Breathe, Vienna and Dancing With Tears In My Eyes were presented with an impressive voice and the audience enjoyed them seated. Second was Joe Lynn Turner, a short man with a huge voice and a strange mass of hair. He performed Stone Cold, I Surrender and Love Conquers All and with his last song Since You´ve Been Gone he managed to get the audience to stand up for the first time in the evening. After he left the stage, the audience sat down again and the orchestra had the opportunity to show its skills with the title melody of Pirates of the Carribean. After that, it was Kim Wilde´s turn. She did You Came, Cambodia, You Keep Me Hanging On and and also got big parts of the audience to stand up with her last song Kids In America. A pause of about 20 minutes followed (again with the loop of adds on the screens and „Top of the World“ as tranquilizer). The band and orcestra immediatly got back the attention of the audience with Pink Floyds „Another Brick In The Wall“ and initiated the crowd to dance and sing along loudly for the first time. The energy level reached its preliminary peak. During the introduction of Mick Box and Bernie Shaw of Uriah Heep, the audience sat down again only to get the gestured order to stand up again by Bernie seconds later. The two guys obviously were having a great time, were in theire best of moods, laughed and joked all the time. The audience was infected, danced and sang along during Easy Livin´, Free Me and the epic July Morning and was at the top of their lungs by the last song Lady in Black. Now this whole thing actually felt like a rock concert! After Bernie and Mick left the stage with loud cheering, the orcestra prepared the crowd with Beethovens 5th for the headliner of the evening, Alice Cooper. With the intro of Hello Hooray and a curtain of sparks, the master entered the stage from behind the orchestra. He grabbed the crowd instantly with House Of Fire, accompanied with fitting pyrotechnic blasts. Without delay they startet into No More Mr. Nice Guy, followed by the change of the light to bloodred and an amazing symphonic version of Only Women Bleed completed with a ballet by Sheryl, domestic violence (both ways) and a hearty bite into Alice´s arm which caused the first (and only) spilled blood of the evening. This was followed by Welcome To My Nightmare which made me wish they could take along their own symphonic orchestra just for this song on the next tour. The crowd was already boiling at this point as far as I could see, but next was the song that everybody in the arena knew: Poison, of course. One girl run to the the stage and got pulled on her hair and was whiped a little (I´m actually not sure if it really was a fan girl or someone from the crew because the security guys didn´t seem to bother as they did before). This was the end of Alice´s set and he left the stage with frenetic cheering. The audience started shouting for an encore instantly. The solo artists where called back on stage ony by one by Mat Sinner and performed School´s Out together but clearly led by Alice. The indispensable balloons where thrown into the crowd but I guess a sword would have been much too dangerous with all the people up there! With the final chords the arena got filled with golden glittering steamers which brought sounds of amazement out of the surprised audience at the end of an ambivalent show. _ The concept of RMC is perfect for the regular symphonic orcestra concert-goer, who wants to experience a rock show in a „save“ environment and with several well-known solo artists, they have until then only heard about and I´m sure many of them will go and see the artists own concerts soon. And of course, it was a pleasure to hear songs like July Morning and Welcome To My Nightmare live in a symphonic version! All the solists were in great shape, but because of the necessity of short sets and the gaps in between, the energy level of the audience never could reach the heights that would have been possible if the show had been done more fluently. I left the venue with a strange mixture of feelings - I enjoyed the whole performance and had great fun, especially with the guys of Uriah Heep and of course Alice, but when the first chords of Schools Out came, I wasn´t in the mood to call it quits! I was still full of energy and hungry to see one more hour of Alice, at least! I will go and order some tickets now...
Posted on: Wed, 19 Mar 2014 22:21:58 +0000
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