On Friday night my Cuz and I attended the Udo Dirkschneider concert at the Starlite Room. And you have to admit, it's fun to say Udo Dirkschneider! I really needed to get out to a show and get my mind off of some unfortunate family issues in the past two weeks, and what works best, live music always does the trick. So this was perfect.
For those that don't know who Udo is, he was the lead singer for the German heavy metal band Accept between 1979-1986 and then joined the group again for a couple of albums between 1993-96. I myself was a fan of Accept in the mid 80's, not a huge fan but did like and own the albums Balls To The Wall, Metal Heart and Russian Roulette. After Accept, Udo went on to front his own band U.D.O. for 15 albums, the only one I have is his first one. So can't say I even gave his solo stuff a chance. So when this show was announced, I thought it would be fun to see Udo, as I never did see Accept in concert, and don't think they ever played Edmonton before. I may be wrong there, but I don't recall seeing them play here from the time I started going to shows in 1984. What was really good about this show is that it was billed as the Back To The Roots Tour, so all Accept songs, sweet! I've always kind of thought as Accept as second rate Judas Priest.
We got to the Starlite Room around 8:30 thinking we would catch the opening band Elm Street from Australia, but that didn't happen, we got there just in time to grab a beer and it was time for Udo. Show was an eary start obviously, kind of surprised me for a Friday night show.
Udo and his band opened the set with a song called "The Beast Inside" from an Accept album called Death Row released in 1994. Have to say I was not familiar with this song, but man what a reception Udo got when he came out on stage. The fists were raised as were the devil horns salute, and Udo's voice was top notch and he hasn't aged one bit, and the man is 65 years old. He looks the exact same as he did back in the 80's, even wearing the camouflage gear still, just classic.
Next up was a song called "Aiming High" from 1986's Russian Roulette album, this song I knew. I didn't know all the tunes but the ones I did, like "Midnight Mover" from Metal Heart were sounding great. The sound at the Starlite seems to have got a lot better in the last couple of times I have been there, which is awesome.
There were a couple slower songs about midway through the show which was a great time to step out for a quick smoke. But after the slow ones, it was time for "London Leather Boys" from the Balls To The Walls album, that sounded amazing and got the near sold out crowd back into the show. After London, it was another song from Metal Heart "Up To The Limit", they did lots from Metal Heart, which to me was the last real good album they put out. The audience seemed to think the same as lots of people were singing along.
Udo's back up band were good, they had the classic metal sound down, as well as the cliché moves, but hey, it was all fun. On guitar was Bill Hudson an LA based guitarist who has played with Savatage and Trans-Siberian Orchestra, he was kind of cheesy actually, also on guitar Andrey Smirnov who is a musician from Russia he was good, on bass from Germany was Fitty Wienhold and rounding out the band on drums is Udo's son Sven.
The encore featured a couple songs from the Accept album Restless And Wild, and of course to close out the show was the song everyone was waiting for "Balls To The Wall", the metal heads were losing their shit to this one.. A fun night of old school heavy metal and a good distraction from events over the past couple of weeks. A big shout out to my buddy for the guest list! Good times!!!
Udo Dirkschneider at the Starlite Room.
T-shirt front.
T-shirt back.
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