Slight Tangent - German Metal

German metal kicked ass back then because Accept were German and their "Balls to the wall" album only fuckin' ruled and its title track had the sound of someone's balls getting squished (this was pre-youtube so we didn't have to see it to know it was fairly gross).
To further show how much Accept kicked ass, vocalist Udo Dirkschneider suffered an onstage heart attack in 1990 (onstage cardiac problems are GOLD in terms of metal kick-ass worth).

German metal also kicked ass because the Scorpions were German and it would be two full years before some horrible bastard unplugged Rudy Schenker's guitar and Klaus Meine started whistling and all of a sudden "Wind of change" was out there and the world would never be the same again.

The Scorpions were the dog's bollocks during the eighties. They did "Rock you like a hurricane" and they showed that metal albums could have tasteful covers (see HERE and HERE). The inlay of their "World Wide Live" (capitalisation is important) album had a piccy of the boys playing some gig where the crowd stretched back to the horizon. You could see the Pope in the wings wondering what these hairy krauts had. Rudy Schenker wrote most of the tracks - but only played rhythm guitar (I always found this dodgy).


Back to HELLOWEEN and 1988

"Helloween". That's like "Halloween" but hundreds of times more sinister and satany because of the "Hell" bit.

Well. That's probably what it was like on paper.

Out in mulletland, the plastic piss projectiles continue their random trajectories overhead as we finally hear some fucking guitar and the curtains part and FUCKING HELLOWEEN RUN ONTO THE STAGE.

That's when it all starts to go wrong.

I'm swept off my feet and get tossed about in a sea of denim, hair, pimples and scrumpy before I manage to battle my way out. Only then can I take stock of the situation.




"HALLOOO DONINKTON" shrieks Michael Kiske. He's got ginger Timotei-style locks and girly pipes. "VEE VILL ROKK CHOO?", he says.

The projectiles temporarily cease as the punters recalibrate their aim towards the source of the Teutonic twittering. And then Helloween get a right royal shelling.

Kiske is first, and fair balls to him, he does try and soldier on with the vocals before taking refuge behind the speaker stack. That leaves the rest of the band, who do not take long to follow suit.

We are quickly left with the spectacle of one duckin'n'divin' drummer and hidden-but-performing band members who wisely finish their set behind cover.


2.30pm

Helloween decide not to go with encores and slink off in search of a shower and a laundromat. That means we have some time to find a good position to sneer at metal upstarts Guns'n'Roses.

I don't like Guns'n'Roses because:

1. They wear makeup and scarves.
2. There's a rumour that they used...[deep breath]...that they used keyboards on their album.




Slight tangent - Keyboards

Back then, if you was metal, you was metal. Metal meant drums, bass, guitar and shouty vocals. It did not mean keyboards. Keyboards was the Pet Shop Boys or Rick Astley. There was no middle ground. Actually, there was no middle ground between metal and anything else.

Sub-tangent - MANOWAR and Keyboards

Burly testosterone-addled KONAN-WIDDA-K metallers MANOWAR were once boycotted by fans after it was revealed that a keyboard had been used during the recording of their SIGN OF THE HAMMER album. The fact that one distorted keyboard note was used to represent the terminal gasps of Klohgyld the Foule Dragon was irrelevant - "they could have done that shit with a suitably distorted bass guitar". The scandal almost killed MANOWAR - a group who considered it unmanly to use drumsticks (percussionist RHINO relied on his head) - until a redeeming performance in the Brixton Academy in 1991 where they killed a keyboard live on stage.

Back to Slight tangent - Keyboards

I fondly recall an exchange I had with a smarmy classmate around 1987.
Me [addressing metal cronies]: "So the new Sacred Reich album is fockin' brillunt. On the second last track you can even hear the bit where Phil Rind's vocal chords snap and you can hear a kind of flapping tube-noise as he tries to croak his way through the last few threats of the song"
[metal cronies]: "Yeah/fockin' deadly/etc"
Smarmy: "God that sounds really great like. What is it? Say-kred Ri-ike. Great stuff, I'm sure"
[the "I'm sure" sends my underdeveloped sarcasmometer off the scale; I give it a few seconds before arriving at an appropriate stalling response]
Me: "HAH??!!"
Smarmy: "Naw, you and your friends there sound like you're really concerned about your hero's medical condition."
[I flounder, unsure of how I could possibly fight back; that's when his pencil case gives me all the ammo I need]
Me [peering at pencil case]: "So you'd be into...THE THE. Jesus boy, could you not remember the name of the band...and did you have to write THE twice to fill up the space like!!?" [turning to cronies]
Smarmy: "That's the name of the group, actually."
Me: "I'd say it fockin' is alright. 'The Pet Shop Boys', is that what you meant to write, hah? They're fockin' girl music, man. Sacred Reich, Metallica, metal up your ass!"
["Metal up your ass" was a popular Metallica t-shirt of the time which consisted of a toilet bowl with a hand jutting out, clutching a knife]


Back to Guns'n'Roses and 1988



Anyway, Guns'n'Roses.

We'd retreated back to a safe distance and were able to scoff and guffaw at these American langers (without bothering to listen to their repertoire). Our conversation was briefly interrupted when their set was interrupted - they had to try some impromptu crowd control.

Of course, we didn't know at the time that muddy grass + crowd surge + big fuckin' metal barrier = two dead schmoes. They sang 'Patience' to cool things down.

We listened out for keyboards. Nothing. Sure Megadeth are on after these fuckers anyway.

To be continued [I can't even wait myself]