Scorpions/Ratt – Concert Review – San Antonio, Tx – July 23, 2010
SCORPIONS – RATT
San Antonio, TX July 23, 2010
Amazing. In a word that’s the best way to describe this show. But as always, I will go into more detail.
The day starts out with me picking up Christine and Charlotte, piling their pretty selves in my car and heading 75 miles south to San Antonio to the AT&T Center. Since it’s a Friday we allowed some extra time to
get through Austin and SA’s traffic. Good idea. The doors opened at 6:30 and we arrived at about 5:45. Hung out in the parking lot, had a beer, talked music and talked a lot of BS. Good times.
We hop in line and 15 minutes later we were in the door. Of course we head to the merch booth to check out the shirts. Both Ratt’s and the Scorpion’s shirts were pretty fugly so I didn’t pick one up. That’s a rarity, me no picking up a concert shirt. We’re inside, grab a beer and go find out seats. I of course looked at the seating chart as I was buying the tickets but didn’t really realize how good they were. My photographer friend, Jinger, was behind us when she wasn’t in the photo pit shooting both bands.
The place was filling in pretty well and I believe it was sold out by the end of the night. San Antonio is a legendary town for metal. So many bands from around the world got their first US break there. Scorpions and Ratt were 2 of those bands. Sure Ratt was popular in the LA scene on the early 80s, but SA radio really pumped them and got them out of California. The SA crowds are great too. They love metal there. It’s pretty awesome.
The lights go down and on comes Ratt. Thanks to the interwebz I had seen the setlist that they have been running for this tour and was pretty stoked for it. Morning After! Alright! Stephen Pearcy was never known for being a great singer and he’s still not, but he did a pretty good job last night. The band consisted of Pearcy, Warren DeMartini, Bobby Blotzer, Robbie Crane and Carlos Cavazo(!). Carlos! I’ve always been a huge fan of the first 3 Quiet Riot albums that Carlos was on. Was fortunate enough to meet and hang out with him in 98. Nice guy, fine guitarist. Ratt sounded great overall. Warren is definitely a hotshot player. Robbie’s been in the band for a long time now and did a fine job. He’s got strong backing vocal skills too. Seeing Ratt was a bit special for me as I had never seen them before. “Back in the day” they came to town with Poison and Bon Jovi and I refused to pay to see either of those bands. Blech! So this was a perfect bill for me to see them on, even if it was 20+ years after their heyday. The only song I didn’t care for in their setlist was Way Cool Jr. That song sucked then and it still sucks now.
Here’s the setlist as I recall it:
- You’re In Love
- Lay It Down
- Lack Of Communication
- Loving You’s A Dirty Job
- I Want A Woman
- Best Of Me
- Slip Of The Lip
- Nobody Rides For Free
- Back For More
- Way Cool Jr.
- Wanted Man
- The Morning After
- Round And Round
Damn fine setlist.
After the Ratt set, the girls and I go out and grab a drink and they run into some friends of theirs who ended up joining us for the Scorpions set.
The music on the PA at rock concerts has always been an interesting subject of discussion. Before the Scorps came on, they were paying all Nickelback. It was pretty annoying. Then Back In Black comes on (very
loudly) and of course people start cheering. I never cared for that song but it’s fun seeing how amped people get anytime it gets played in an arena. 20 seconds into it, the lights go down, the songs ends and here comes Rudy Schenker walking on the stage to open the show. The crowd goes apeshit…including me. Rudy! RUDY! The rest of the band quickly follows and they open up with Sting In The Tail from the new album.
The band sounded great all night. Klaus’ voice was clean and powerful even though you can tell that they were playing everything tuned down. But for a dude that’s 62, he did a fine job. They all did. They have some Polish bass player named Pawel Maciwoda and James Kottak on drums. Kottak is a maniac. One of those showy type drummers, but solid as a rock and did a great job. He did a drum solo and had a rather humorous synchronized video of him in a bunch of different live recreations of Scorpions albums. For me the video was more interesting than the solo, but the guy obviously has a great sense of humor.
I’ve seen the Scorpions twice before. Once in 1991 on the Crazy World Tour and the other in 2002 with DIO and Deep Purple. This show was probably better than the 98 show but hard to top the 91 show. I was a little
letdown that they played nothing from the Uli Roth era as in recent years. They had been doing either In Trance or We’ll Burn the Sky, but nothing on this tour…their final tour. In general it didn’t matter. They were great. They did Send Me An Angel and dedicated it ti Ronnie James Dio. For Angel and Holiday, Rudy and Matthias had a Flying V and Explorer electric/acoustics! It made me giggle a bit but it was pretty cool.
One great surprise was at the beginning of their encore. Klaus talked about how special San Antonio was to helping the Scorpions then they went right into Still Loving You. This is the only show on the tour, as I can tell, that this song was played. We freaked out. They dropped Winds of Change (thank God). That song always annoyed me. The finished up with No One Like You and Rock You Like A Hurricane. I would have stayed for another 2 hours of music had then been able to do it. The energy from the crowd and from the band were pretty amazing. In recent years the only show that rivaled this one was Iron Maiden in 2008.
The setlist:
- Sting Of The Tail
- Make It Real
- Bad Boys Running Wild
- The Zoo
- Coast To Coast
- Loving You Sunday Morning
- The Best Is Yet To Come
- Send Me An Angel
- Holiday
- Raised On Rock
- Tease Me Please Me
- Dynamite
- Kottack Attack (Drum Solo)
- Blackout
- Six String Sting (Matthias rocks out)
- Big City Nights
- Still Loving You (encore)
- No One Like You (encore)
- Rock You Like A Hurricane (encore)
The drive home was long and both of the girls fell asleep. It was an incredible night for a lot of reasons.
Upon returning home to downtown Austin, I walked across the street and caught the last 2 songs from Jason McMaster’s Killa Maul Metallica tribute. Awesome as always. Slipped across the street from there and ate a slice of pizza, drank half a beer, came home and went to bed.
Wonderful night with wonderful people.
Long live the Scorpions!
Good review – I like the “personal touch”…
I hope I get to see the Scorps on this tour too. They are always a great band live.
*James Kottak (ex-KINGDOME COME ha ha…) is a cool guy and drummer. I used to watch him in the Midwest perform with BUSTER BROWN all the time and they were like an’ L.A. Metal band (ala’ RATT, DOKKEN etc.) but with more a reg. hard rock vibe that was cool.
Their club shows were more like concerts in the 80’s as they were always packed and totally top-notch musicians and put on great shows.
Peep them here (some funny pics of James K. in his younger dayz):
http://demolishmag.wordpress.com/memorabilia/
*scroll down the page a bit.
-as far as RATT…
I never liked “Way Cool Jr.” either. How did Bobby sound live? I hate his drum sound on the new material. And the bass is lacking. Hopefully they kicked it up a notch (or two) live!
Carlos is def. bad ass. While you are in the Demolish VAULTS with that link above – peep my QUIET RIOT concert experience. Guarantee you will piss yer’ pants!
Rock on!
Kinger
demolishfanzine
July 24, 2010 at 1:10 pm
Sounds like a great show. I saw the Scorps in 1988 and they were amazing.
I am with you on Ratt’s The Morning after. Great song. Nobody rides for free is another slightly surprising but welcome choice too I’m sure.
Mark McKinney
July 24, 2010 at 3:07 pm
Don’t like Back In Black…. Each to their own.
About the T – Shirts, it might be just me, but the merch companies do bring out some really shitty looking shirts. I think they’re running out of ideas!
Truth be told I’m not a Ratt fan but I do enjoy reading stories about peoples concert adventures.
And yours sounded like fun!
Music, it’s the “Language Of The Soul”. I can’t live without it!
Leighton
July 24, 2010 at 3:11 pm
that’s so cool it brings me back to my first concert which was the “Contraband” tour that featured Ratt, the much underrated LA Guns and Bang Tango… Good times.
kingbiscuitpants
July 24, 2010 at 4:18 pm
dude i filmed the entire shows both ratt and the scorps…
i should be uploading them to a torrent site that deals in bootleg vids…
i dont know.. i think the scorps didnt do as good as other shows, last time i saw them was when they toured with motley crue and scoprs were the openers.. they freakin blew the crue away!
ratt was cool i had never seen them before
RICHARD aka EL REY
July 24, 2010 at 5:46 pm
Man this is strange, I just jumped online to see if there were interesting review on the concert. You’re site was at the top of the search results. I know you might not believe this but as I looked closer at your ticket, I realized that my wife and I sat right in front of you and your friends. We were in Section 20, row 9 seats 9 & 10. My wife also spoke (prior to Ratt) with your photographer friend. I remember seeing all four of you right behind us. What are the chances?
Anyhow, I couldn’t agree more with your write up. This was my first Scorpians concert and it exceeding my expectations.
Sergio
Sergio
July 24, 2010 at 7:43 pm
Sergio, that is too cool!
Sean (The Metal Files)
July 24, 2010 at 7:48 pm
It was so worth the 3 hour drive from Houston.
I last saw them in 2006 (Tesla opened)
have seen them every tour since 1981
even saw them at “monsters of rock” w-van halen.
if this is there last tour , they went out with a Bang !!!!
the SA crowd went nuts when they did a song for the late
great : Ronnie James DIO.
Ratt was a great opening act (1 hour set , 13 songs)
I hope the show makes it to houston (before the boyz retire)
Great Show….thanks SA for being a great crowd.
Mr. Harold
July 25, 2010 at 7:16 pm
Great review of a great show. Amazing to see people all the way to the roof and loving every minute of the Scorps. Nice blog. Thanks for checking my site, too. Rock! Metal Dave/2Fast2Die
metal dave
July 26, 2010 at 4:48 am
Great Review!! I too just jumped online to see if anyone reviewed it and yours was the first…great job!! I look forward to more reviews from you guys…are you all coming to the Rush show in Sept?
Anthony
July 26, 2010 at 11:18 am
Thanks for checking it out, Anthony. I’ll not be seeing Rush. I love their 70s stuff but Moving Pictures was overkilled for me. Cant’ sit through the whole thing.
Sean (The Metal Files)
July 26, 2010 at 11:47 am
Missed the SA show because our band had a gig on friday in Austin. So we went to the Oklahoma City show at the zoo ampitheater on Saturday night. AWESOME SHOW there. Rarebell and Michael both on stage with Kottak and Carmine Appice on cow bell and tamborine. Awesome show with all those guys on stage. Cinderella opened as did MSG, L.A. Guns, etc. Big 80’s.
I am hoping the Scorps come back through Texas at some point before it’s all over. Thanks for the review.
John
July 26, 2010 at 2:10 pm
have seen both Ratt and the Scorps several times. Starting with Invasion Tour for Ratt, and crazy World Tour for the Scorps. I think this time was the best time I have seen each of those bands. I love Ratt but they have never been the best live band so I thought they did well . I always enjoy the Scorps but they had a much bigger show than usual . They were solid start to finish.
Lundy Lundy
July 27, 2010 at 10:37 pm
Great write up as always… it’s cool they played “No One Like You” and did change up the set list from when I saw them. There will never be another band like the Scorpions. From all the cool concerts and stories I read on The Metal Files, Texas should just change the name of their state to: Metal Texas.
It’s great to read that RATT was solid. RATT has made one fabulous comeback in 2010.
metalodyssey
July 28, 2010 at 1:01 pm
Sounds like a good night indeed.I wanted to go,especially after hearing about this being their “last” tour (we’ll see about that),but had a Family engagement already planned.Thanks for reminding me about Jason’s tribute band as I will be definitely going to the next show.Another great post,thanks for sharing.
T-Bone
July 28, 2010 at 10:03 pm
My first Scorpions concert and definetely one of my favorite. Wasn’t too familiar with all the songs, but enjoyed the crowds involvement. They were in tuned with the band. The finale was amaziing. Just checked the airline tickets yesterday for the Chicago’s date. Wish I could go. Still reeling and playing my Blackout Album @ home and CD in the car. Old School.
Michael Mokarzel
August 10, 2010 at 7:39 am
Very nice review and youtube clip. I saw Scorpions 4 times in the 80’s and had a pang of sadness at not seeing this show, since likely they will hang it up instead of just pretending to retire. I was surprised to see from your set list that they did so much from “Lovedrive” and “Animal Magnetism”. Would love to have seen that live.
Love the picture of yall in the car. Are you going to see the Gracious Few in Austin next month?
Chelsea
September 28, 2010 at 11:10 pm
Gracious Few? I’ve never heard of them until right now and listening to their Myspace clips, I’m pretty sure I won’t be there. :)
Thanks for posting!
The Metal Files
September 29, 2010 at 6:17 am
They are 3 members from Live (everyone but the singer) and 2 members from Candlebox. Their new album is fantastic. or to me it is. :o)
I stayed up late going back through lots of your reviews and I really enjoyed them.
Chelsea
September 29, 2010 at 9:26 am
While I loved Live I despised Candlebox. Does this band have CBox’s singer? I think the vocals are what turned me off on the songs I heard.
Thanks for checking out my site. I am uber jealous that you got to see the Scorps 4 times in the 80s. 1991 was my first time.
The Metal Files
September 29, 2010 at 9:33 am