udo_2015_04

» U.D.O. 2015 04 23

Reviewed by Tobbe
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Special guests: Sister Sin, Garagedays
City: Stockholm, Sweden
Venue: Klubben
Date: April 23rd 2015
U.D.O. set length: 114 minutes

U.D.O.

Thursday night in Stockholm and Udo Dirkschneider and his U.D.O. are back in Sweden yet again and this unit today is a highly international constellation with 3 Germans and 1 guy each representing Russia, Finland and the United States. The main man has lately decided to recruit his own son Sven on the drums, as Francesco Jovino called it quits a few months ago and he has also recently brought in keyboarder Harrison Young to join the ranks, and to have a keyboarder in this heavy metal machine might be a little odd occasionally, but if you have listened to some of the latest material, it isn't really that odd anymore.

U.D.O.'s livesets used to comprise more or less 50 percent of title tracks and a few songs off the latest album put together and also of 50 percent of Accept classics, but since Accept's comeback some time ago I guess that Udo realized that there wasn't enough room for 2 different bands to kind of split one set of songs. By this we tonight get a set of 10 songs off the 2 latest installments Decadent and Steelhammer, 8 songs off the rest of the band's records and finally only 4 Accept songs which all together eventually concludes the near 2 hour set.

With the new guitarists Andrey Smirnov and particularly Kasperi Heikkinen, the interaction with the crowd differs hugely from what the former guys Stefan Kaufmann and Igor Gianola were able to come out with. The 2 latter were in fact really boring on stage and weren't really active and they simply weren't prepared to launch a great performance. Heikkinen and Smirnov totally got what it takes to please a crowd though, as they constantly are in some kind of connection with the people on the floor and these 2 guys have definitely brought back a lot of energy to the band's gigs.

Personally I dig that they have shaken up the setlist big-time and also the choice of performing a set of mainly U.D.O. songs, since I've seen the Accept classics on so many shows in the past with both units. Still I question the choice of songs a little anyway, because as far as I'm concerned they should have picked a quite different set with less new songs and when I during the set looked to the left and to the right of me on a few occasions, quite a large share of the audience didn't really know which song the band was playing.

Finally I must say that the people who were there for the Accept songs solely must have felt quite stupid at the end of the day and even if I feel no pity for them, I reckon those people won't return to a U.D.O. concert any time soon.

Performance: 6 chalices of 10
Stage sound: 6 chalices of 10
Best: The classic U.D.O. track Break The Rules came out really awesome.
Worst: The song Pain didn't come out particularly well tonight.

Setlist:
Intro
Speeder
Blitz Of Lightning
King Of Mean
Decadent
Independence Day
Black Widow
Never Cross My Way
The Bullet And The Bomb
Under Your Skin
Tears Of A Clown
Secrets In Paradise
Faceless World
Pain
Untouchable
Let Me Out
Metal Machine
Metal Eater
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Break The Rules
Metal Heart
I'm A Rebel
Fast As A Shark
Balls To The Wall