This was a special one-off concert, that was filmed and recorded on 11th July 2014 at the ‘Bang Your Head’ festival in Balingen, Germany to celebrate German guitarist Axel Rudi Pell’s 25 years as a solo artist in the music business. You can get this as a Digipak 3 CD, Digipak 3 DVD , Blu-ray and Digital download.
Cd 1 features four songs from Axel’s first band ‘Steeler’, and to be honest I would have liked more, a lot more. . I had forgotten just how good these songs are until I heard them again on here. The cd also features Rob Rock and Jeff Scott Soto, who reunited with Pell for renditions of ‘Fool Fool’ and ‘Warrior’. A brilliant introduction for those people who missed the band the first time around.
Disc two is the main event featuring a set of ARP classics played by his current band, vocalist Johnny Gioelli really gets the crowd going on some of these, especially ‘Strong As A Rock’, ‘Into The Storm’ and ‘Rock The Nation’.
Disc three is the special feature, a collection of ( mostly ) Rainbow and Deep Purple covers played on the night rounding off that three hour concert, thing’s really get going after a 10 minute long drum battle with a great version of ‘Black Night’, led by Pretty Maids front man Ronnie Atkins. Then it’s John Lawton’s turn, the former voice of Uriah Heep, to sing their song “Sympathy“ and then the ZZ Top track “Tush“.
Tony Carey is guest vocalist on the over long “Mistreated“ along with Doogie White who gets a rapturous welcome.
‘Since You Been Gone’ is next up, and sure enough, we get to welcome on stage Graham Bonnet, who does a rather good job, however he never really get’s to grips with the Dio-era Rainbow classic ‘Long Live Rock ‘N’ Roll’ and it’s left to Doogie White to save the day.
The last track is the all-time classic ‘Smoke On The Water’ which see’s everybody on stage, a fitting ending to what must have been an incredible night.
Tracklist
Disc: 1
- Steeler Call Her Princess
- Steeler Night After Night
- Steeler Rockin’The City
- Steeler Undercover Animal
- Nasty Reputation
- Warrior
- Fool Fool
Disc: 2
- Burning Chains
- Strong As A Rock
- Long Way To Go
- Hey Hey My My
- Mystica
- Into The Storm
- Too Late / Eternal Prisoner / Too Late
- The Masquerade Ball / Casbah
- Rock The Nation
Disc: 3
- Drum Battle
- Black Night
- Sympathy
- Tush
- Mistreated
- Since You Been Gone
- Long Live Rock ‘n` Roll
- Smoke On The Water
Line-Up:
Axel Rudi Pell – Guitars
Johnny Gioeli – Vocals
Ferdy Doernberg – Keyboards
Volker Krawczak – Bass
Bobby Rondinelli Drums
Friends:
Steeler: Peter Burtz (v), Tom Eder (g), Roland Hag (b), Jan Yiridal (dr)+ Rob Rock (v), Jeff Scott Soto (v), Joerg Michael (dr), Vinny Appice (dr), Ronnie Atkins (v), John Lawton (v), Tony Carey (k, v), Doogie White (v), Graham Bonnet (v), Michael Voss (v)
- £20