Saturday September 16th after 33 years the Scorpions made their return to “The World’s Most Famous Arena””Madison Square Garden”. It was packed to the top of the rafters. One ticket agent told me there were less then 1,000 tickets left as of 6pm. That means over 19,000 people attended Saturday nights Scorpions/Megadeth show. Not one person went home disappointed that night. This was my first time at the Garden. I have been to over 100 plus shows in my life and there is nothing like seeing a show in New York City on a Saturday night. The Energy outside of the building was electric all day long. I took the MSG tour Saturday morning and was able to see the crew setup the stage prior to the show. I soaked in the atmosphere all day long in NYC. While wearing a Scorpions shirt all day i was stopped a number of times by people asking me about the Scorpions. It felt like one big family in the city. This show was very important to the Scorpions. All members flew in their families and close friends to witness this event. There were VIP’s and celebrities all over the venue. When i walked into the Garden at 6:30pm i could feel it in the air. The nervous tension in the air. This was not your normal Saturday night show. This was the Return of the Scorpions to the Garden. Lets take a trip back in time to the last time the Scorpions played the Garden(June 6-7-8 1984). The Scorpions opening act on those 3 shows was a unknown American band called Bon Jovi. Wow how times have changed in 33 years. On this night and on this 17 date North American tour the Special Guest is Megadeth. If you have never seen Megadeth please get to the venue early. The time on your ticket is when Megadeth will hit the stage. They play a blistering 50 minute set of their hits and got the fans pumped throughout their time on stage.
Megadeth(7:30-8:20) Setlist- 1)Hangar 18 2)Mechanix 3)Take No Prisoners 4)Dystopia 5)Trust 6)Tornado of Souls 7)Symphony of Destruction 8)Peace Sells 9)Holy Wars(The Punishment Due)
Around 8:50 the lights went out and the party began. For the next 1 hour and 40 minutes the Scorpions rocked the Garden like no other night. Klaus Meine was in great vocal form all night and Rudy Schenker was running around the stage like it was 1984 all over again. Matthias Jabs hit every guitar solo and classic rock star poses all night long. Pawel Maciwoda played his heart out and Mikkey Dee has added a new powerful element to the Scorpions show which has been missing since the early 90’s. Band members could be seen looking up to the top of the venue enjoying the size of the crowd and the reaction from their fans who had come from all over the world to witness this amazing night. The show started out with a new cool intro video that led into “Going out with a Bang” which was followed by Make It Real. Klaus introduced the next song which was written about a street 8 blocks from MSG-42st street called “The Zoo”. The place went nuts during this 7 minute version of this song. Next up was Coast to Coast an instrumental from the Lovedrive album that showcased Rudy and Matthias on co-lead guitars with Klaus playing some Rhythm guitar. For me the next 8 minutes was a major highlight of the evening. The band decided to pay homage to their 70’s albums with a medley of 4 songs(Top of the Bill-Steamrock Fever-Speedy’s Coming and Catch Your Train). Next song was “We Built This House” the 1st single from their latest album Return to Forever. This song fit in perfectly with the set and the fans who have not bought the new album i think will go out and get it now. It was time for Matthias to step up to the spotlight with his instrumental “Delicate Dance” which also had Matthias guitar tech”Ingo Powitzer” on backing guitar. Now it was time to slow things down with a 3 song acoustic medley from 3 different decades(Always Somewhere(1979),Eye of the Storm(2015),Send me an Angel(1990). After the acoustic set”Wind of Change” was next with Klaus declaring our world needs another “Wind of Change”. The Garden lit up like a Christmas tree during this ballad. Back to the Hard Rock portion of the evening with a new song “Rock and Roll Band” from Return to Forever”. The band now showcased new drummer Mikkey Dee who in my opinion is one of the best drummers i have ever seen in concert. They paid tribute to the late-great Lemmy Kilmister(who by the way was a huge Scorpions fan) with a cover of “Overkill” and then a 7 minute drum solo where Mikkey’s drums rose about 25 feet in the air. During most drum solos fans run to the bathroom or to get a drink. Not one person left the seating area. All i could see was stunned and amazement from everyone in the arena. After the Drum solo was complete Blue strobe lights and sirens rang out throughout the venue which led all band members back on stage to perform the 1982 classic Blackout. During this song Rudy Schenker’s guitar had smoke coming from the bottom of the flying V. The band sounded great doing this classic Hard Rocker. Then it was time for a “Big City Nights”. How appropriate to play this song in the biggest city on the planet”New York City”. Just imagine 19,000 people singing “Big City..Big City Nights”. A major highlight to close out the first part of the show. For the Encores the band returned to played 3 of their biggest songs. First was New York City there’s “No One Like You” which had everyone singing and dancing on their seats. Second probably the most emotional part of the evening. Klaus told fans they were going to have a “Hurricane Relief Fund” at every show on this North American run (Text-Give Rock to 80077) and then introduced “Still Loving You’. There wasn’t a dry eye in the arena during this song. And now for the closer “Rock You Like A Hurricane”. The song that defined a decade and is still being played at all stadiums around the world. This song tore the roof off the Garden. You could feel the ground shaking under you during this song. While the Scorpions thanked the 19,000 plus fans who showed up on a Saturday night to Rock The Garden. You could tell this band after 52 years still has some great years ahead of them and a return to the Garden before they ride into the sunset is possible. But if it doesn’t happen the fans know the Scorpions gave them everything they had on Saturday September 16 and we the fans gave them everything we had on that night. So thank you Scorpions for all the great concerts and the great music you have provided us throughout the years. Don’t Forget Us Because We Will Never Forget You!!!
Scorpions(8:50-10:30) Setlist- 1) Going Out with a Bang 2) Make It Real 3) The Zoo 4) Coast To Coast 5) 70’s medley-(Top of the Bill-Steam rock Fever-Speedy’s Coming-Catch Your Train) 6) We Built This House 7) Delicate Dance 8) Acoustic Medley-(Always Somewhere-Eye of the Storm-Send Me An Angel) 9) Wind of Change 10) Rock and Roll Band 11) Overkill(Motorhead cover) 12) Mikkey Dee Drum Solo 13) Blackout 14) Big City Nights ENCORE- 15) No One Like You 16) Still Loving You 17) Rock You Like A Hurricane
More than 50 years after the band began, business for Scorpions is as good as it ever was. Guitarist Matthias Jabs and drummer Mikkey Dee joined Q104.3’s “Jim Kerr Rock and Roll Morning Show” to talk about the band’s incredible career, the undying love it gets from its worldwide fanbase and the miracle worker who cured Jabs’ smoking habit. (19:11 interview)
Scorpions will be chatting LIVE with Eddie Trunk today on Trunk Nation! Have questions for the legendary German rockers? Be a part of the Facebook Live at 3pm ET today (September 12th, 2017).
German hard rock veterans SCORPIONS have announced their North American “Crazy World” tour with very special guest MEGADETH.
Since performing a handful of festivals and concerts last year in the U.S., the band will return to North America for a month-long run of dates.
“When our album ‘Crazy World’ was released back in ’91, right at the end of the cold war, we toured around a world that was pretty crazy back then, but there was so much hope in the air for a more peaceful future,” said SOCRPIONS singer Klaus Meine. “Now, 26 years later, things are getting more crazy every other day. After all these years, ‘Crazy World’ is still a good motto for our upcoming world tour. We are very much looking forward to seeing all of you out there.”
Scorpions/Megadeth 2017 North American Concert Announcement:
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MEGADETH will join SCORPIONS on a North American tour which will kick off on September 14 in Reading, Pennsylvania and conclude on October 15 in Tampa, Florida. The 16-date trek, dubbed the “Crazy World Tour”, celebrates SCORPIONS‘ 1990 LP of the same name.
Asked by the “Lamont And Tonelli Show”, which airs on the Bay Area rock station 107.7 The Bone, how the SCORPIONS–MEGADETH pairing came about, SCORPIONS guitarist Matthias Jabs said (hear audio on the above link): “It was a suggestion by our agent, from New York, of course. We have known MEGADETH for a long time. In Europe, we played together at festivals — in Portugal, in Spain and in other countries — years and years ago. And so they’re nice guys, they make great music, and I think it’s a great package.”
Two of the SCORPIONS‘ best-known songs, “Winds Of Change” and “Send Me An Angel”, both appear on “Crazy World”.
“When our album ‘Crazy World’ was released back in ’91, right at the end of the cold war, we toured around a world that was pretty crazy back then, but there was so much hope in the air for a more peaceful future,” SCORPIONS singer Klaus Meine said. “Now, 26 years later, things are getting more crazy every other day. After all these years, ‘Crazy World’ is still a good motto for our upcoming world tour.”
MEGADETH bassist David Ellefson told Roppongi Rocks in April that “it is really a cool bill to play with SCORPIONS. We have played festivals with them over the years and it’s a really good fit musically between the two bands and our fans. Plus I think every metal fan loves a SCORPIONS song. Dave [Mustaine, MEGADETH mainman] and I have always been fans and they are one of Kiko‘s [Loureiro, MEGADETH guitarist] favorites, too. They are a real guitar player’s kind of band. In fact, when Dave and I first met in 1983, we had a friend who was attending the school Musicians Institute in Hollywood and would come over to our place and jam early SCORPIONS songs. We always studied a lot of the European guitar players, because they had a different influence that worked well in metal…mostly classical inspirations. In a way, those jam sessions were inspiring in the development of the earliest MEGADETH compositions, especially the complexity in the solos and riffs. It was a really creative and innovative period that defined some of those earliest songs for ‘Killing Is My Business…’ and even ‘Peace Sells…’. I think the tour is going to see a lot of us reliving some cool memories from over th
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On Friday, June 23 musicians Scorpions unveiled a star located just in the Wawel Castle Krakow’s Walk of Fame.
Scorpions as anyone deserved honor for the city of Krakow – the group performed here several times, and the story went live in 2000. Pobiednik at the airport near Krakow, which was playing about 800 thousand people! It is not only the largest concert ever held in Poland, but also in terms of attendance record for the team that during the more than 50-year career he played almost all the big festivals, the famous Rock in Rio at the helm.
Pobiednik concert, organized by RMF FM as part of the Invasion Force, to this day remains in the memory of musicians . – Organizers of the radio told us that they expect a hundred, maybe two hundred thousand people. We thought, wow, that’s a great crowd! When we went on stage it was dark and could not see how many people are actually in the audience. It reached us only when we saw the photos taken from a police helicopter published in the newspaper the next day – recalled guitarist Matthias Jabs.
On 4 March 2016. Krakow was held also the last, so far, Polish concert of Scorpions and the Wieliczka near Krakow comes from the current bassist, Paweł Mąciwoda.
– Paul fits well in the Scorpions. He joined us in 2003 when we recorded the album “Unbreakable”, for him it was something completely new. Now he finds himself very well in our style. I remember when we played in his hometown of Krakow during the last tour in March last year, the screens placed around the great arena that looks like a UFO, display the message: “Hello, Paul.” I was very proud of him and glad that we can play in his hometown, “- he told jabs.
– Concert in Krakow was wonderful – a fantastic arena, excellent audience. When we played “Wind of Change” in the audience appeared a huge Polish flag.Then watched it on video and it looked really spectacular – said singer Klaus Meine.
His star in the Walk of Fame have been Michael Jackson, Marek Grechuta, Celine Dion, Krzysztof Krawczyk, as well as teams Maanam, Wolves and Shed Stonehill.
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