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14. April 2013

Lordi / Tri State Corner / Reverse Grip @ Essigfabrik – Köln – 11.04.2013

Remember the 20th May 2006? A day of glory for all devotees to Heavy Metal and Hard-Rock. Lordi had been crowned by title at the European Song Contest by their song ‘Hard Rock Hallelujah’. At specially organized parties and even in the streets metal brothers and sisters were crying like little babies and hugging by joy, being so affected by their common victory. Anno 2013 and by the new opus ‘To Beast Or Not To Beast’ it was  Lordi time finally on tour again to devastate the continent. A die-hard fan following as many gigs as possible, off course in the front row, eye to eye with Mister Lordi, was even costumed like Kalma, the former bass-beast, crazy*.

You love hard- and sleaze-rock? Then you absolutely must experience Reverse Grip. A collectice of 3 brothers – Dru, Sean and Dylan entiteled by the name of Broda and their actual bass player Kramer White. They play with high energy and keep up the flame burning for your favorite music of the 80’ies. The three bro’s were born in Canada, but now enjoy their life when not being on tour in koala-roo-croc-country Australia. Sean started by a classy guitar solo with bluesy hooks in the tradition of Tracii Guns of L.A. Guns and Dave „Snake“ Sabo of Skid Row. When Dru entered the stage he proved by the very first tunes what an outstanding vocal-dude he is. He made to remember not only by his outfit the young Axel Rose of Guns N’ Roses  in his best early years. He easily animated the fans for ‘Hunger For Chaos’ as being the title of their first full-play cd. “Quick and Dirty” was not only one of the peak-kick-ass-songs, the explosive 30 minutes of showtime passed by like a ride on a roller-coaster.

For Tri State Cornerto go wild in Cologne was very special as the mad-jack carnival-city is their hometown. Not surprisingly they had attracted quite a lot of fans coming extra for them. Do you know why they call themselves Tri State Corner? The band members are from Germany, Poland and Greece. Something else-very special? They are the only renowned metal band in the whole universe to use a greek lute referred to as bouzouki as leading instrument, being played soo magnificent by Ioannis Maniatopoulos. This made the sound very unique and melodic on one face-side and TRC were taking their fans on a wild musical godly journey. Naturally the other side of their face was their dynamic, metal one, specially by the heavy drums of Christos Efthimiadis and the indie-metal-guitar-grooves of Christoph Tkocz. And TRC have a brilliant singer by Vassilios „Lucky“ Maniatopoulos. He had the feasibility to sing utmost heavy, but also melancholy and very melodious. The metal-heads were easily getting in the mood, besides raising their thumbs into the air to act as refrain-chorus, specially by ‘Sooner Or Later’. The gig ended in a triumph by applause.

After the industrial metal-intro of ‘SCG6’ Lordi started their monstrous tempest by ‘We’re Not Bad For The Kids (We’re Worse)’. The intro beats by the new drummer Mana proved what a manimal he is, continuing the heavy-gambling legacy by his beats of Otus who plays now heavenly – R.I.P – brother! The nearly filled to completion Essigfabrik was immediately turned into a tollhouse and the party was hotter than hell. The second tune ‘Bringing Back the Balls to Rock’ was to evidence that Lordi 2013 are much more into full-metal than in earlier hard-rock-oriented decades. Next was ‘The Riff’, being the first video-song for the new publication. Industrial metal infecting in positive way the brains of the crazies to head-bang in wildest manner. By ‘Blood Red Sandman’ Mister Lordi acted with some zombie-delicacies and was styled like the lovely one. Uuuuuh, grandma would not fall to sleep by him. Consecutively it was special-solo-time for Hella to put a spell on the male maniacs, not only by being the new lovely “SCARBIE”, but also by her keyboard-solo.  This was kind of antique and rather medieval like on a parish fair. As gimmick a zombie was covering her body with a curtain and presenting her torn-off head. But as she was angelic she got it back,hihi… Even a old fogey resembling Eddie the famous Iron Maiden monster was to agitate by ‘This Is Heavy Metal’. It was rather classical ballad-time by ‘It Snows In Hell’. Specially the keyboard-solos by Hella proved that she is definitely an enrichment  by her versatility. The pastor Mana celebrated his big sermon afterwards. First he was to be raised to the hall ceiling like he should be hanged. But when he started to cuddle his drum-kit  by wearing at the beginning laser-beaming eye-glasses this was really spectacular, not only to watch but also by his technique. Amen the Egyptian mummy-pharoh led the freaks by his solo way back to a typical shredding show-guitar extravaganza, first playing like on a baritone axe and then by high-fidelity. He was shrouded into stroboscope light and behind him a turning disc like in a western-knife-show. The time went by so quickly so by the champion-hit ‘Hard-Rock-Hallelujah’ the second part of encores started. Mr. Lordi presented himself again as a bat and unfolded his wings. By ‘Would You Love a Monsterman’ two hours of glamorous show and music ended by victory of the beasts over the Cologne earthlings. They had been mutated by love-bite into zombies and so they were creeping happily towards their burial vaults.

LORDI 2013 – HEAVY, HEAVY MONSTER BEASTS ON THEIR CLIMAX*****

Big Thanxx to Sandra Eichner of Rosenheim-Rocks for the accredidation!

Pls. click on the pic above for further tour-dates!