Rock Meets Classic

THE SWEET Frontman PETE LINCOLN Talks ROCK MEETS CLASSIC 2016, FRONTM3N, And Going Solo (Again)

By Carl Begai

“Without The Sweet there would not have been a KISS.”

So says music legend, entrepreneur and mouthpiece Gene Simmons, which is a fine reason to give a damn about what The Sweet and all its moving parts are up to these days. In the case Pete Lincoln, who has been fronting the 45+ year institution since 2006, and guitarist Andy Scott (on board since 1970), they recently wrapped up a three week road trip through Germany and Switzerland with the annual Rock Meets Classic tour, now boasting seven years of success. Lincoln and Scott shared the stage with Joey Tempest (Europe), Scott Gorham and Ricky Warwick (Thin Lizzy), Dan McCafferty (Nazareth), Midge Ure (Ultravox), Doro (Warlock) and Steve Walsh (Kansas), performing some of The Sweet’s classic tunes to raucous rounds of approval night after night. On top of that, they helped to break in the new Rock Meets Classic format when it was decided the six year old formula needed to be changed.

“I saw Rock Meet Classic last year when I was in Germany and it blew me way, and I said we’ve got to get on it,” Lincoln says of how he and Scott found themselves on the tour. “Obviously we couldn’t take the whole band so it’s just me and Andy, but it’s just great. It’s a new concept for us so we had to get our heads around it because there’s the orchestra, the Mat Sinner Band band members, the set changes, other elements. It’s not the same as playing with a regular band so it took a few days, but I think we all agree that we don’t want to stop. We want to go home for a week’s rest, then come back and do another month of this. I’ve heard all these songs before, of course, but it’s great to hear them in this context. Midge’s songs, for example, take on a new life; ‘Vienna’ with an orchestra sounds killer. It’s really interesting to see how the format works on all these different types of music.” Continue reading THE SWEET Frontman PETE LINCOLN Talks ROCK MEETS CLASSIC 2016, FRONTM3N, And Going Solo (Again)

ECHOES – Playing Barefoot: An Acoustic Tribute To PINK FLOYD

By Carl Begai

If you’re a metal fan the name Oliver Hartmann may not ring any bells at first, but chances are pretty good you’ve heard him on any number of albums over the past 15+ years. The German vocalist / guitarist / producer launched At Vance in 1998 and has released nine albums with them since then, but Hartmann’s talents have also been used for recordings by Avantasia, Rhapsody and Edguy (to name a few) and as a guitarist on the annual Rock Meets Classic tour. Even if you are familiar with his catalogue, however, you may not be aware of his long-standing tenure as a member of the Pink Floyd tribute band Echoes, which has been around since 1995. Hartmann came on board in 2003 and has devoted a considerable amount of time to the project in spite of his busy schedule. He kicked off what promises to be a busy 2016 with a fully acoustic Echoes tour in support of their recent live CD / DVD release Barefoot To The Moon, which landed in a Nuremberg church on the day of this interview.

Seriously. A church. Complete with a bar. Only in Germany…

Professional musicians have their work cut out for them when covering Pink Floyd to begin with, but doing so acoustically is an entirely new animal. Particularly when Hartmann and his bandmates get down to business.

“Two years ago we did a benefit show in Aschaffenburg, Germany,” Hartmann says of the push towards the acoustic set. “We were asked to play, we thought about it, and decided to do an acoustic show. We picked out the songs we thought would work best and played for an hour, and that’s where we got the idea to do an entire acoustic evening. When we were putting the show together we decided that we would supplement any instrumental parts that were missing or too difficult to play acoustically – keyboards, sustain, delays, that sort of thing – with a string quartet. And the idea wasn’t a big stretch because of my involvement with Rock Meets Classic over the last years. We decided to take a minimalistic approach to the songs, sort of like an MTV Unplugged version of Pink Floyd (laughs).” Continue reading ECHOES – Playing Barefoot: An Acoustic Tribute To PINK FLOYD

ROCK MEETS CLASSIC – Purple, Green, And Everything In Between…

By Carl Begai

Ingolstadt, Germany: March 10th, 2015

So, show #1 of Rock Meets Classic 2015 is in the books. As expected there were the usual first show glitches, missed cues and general stiffness, but it promises to be one of the best RMC tours yet (and the last two years are pretty damn hard to top). Looking forward to see how this monster grows.

Noteworthy bits and bites:

– by far the best intro performance Rock Meets Classic has ever had. Doing up ‘Thunderstruck’ Apocalyptica-style = brilliant.

– Marc Storace of Krokus singing ‘Long Stick Goes Boom’ backed by an orchestra? Gold.

– Asia frontman John Wetton sounds exactly the same as 30 years ago. Killer.

– Mat Sinner smiles a lot.

– Mr. Big vocalist Eric Martin has way too much fun for one person. By mid-tour ‘To Be With You’ is going to be epic. The backing vocalists blew the roof off on ‘Green Tinted Sixties Mind’ (nice going Amanda, Tiffany, Kolinda and Sascha… mind blown).

– hails to guitarist Oliver Hartmann for remembering “the note” during the solo for ‘To Be With You’. Continue reading ROCK MEETS CLASSIC – Purple, Green, And Everything In Between…

ROCK MEETS CLASSIC – And When The Lights Go Down…

By Carl Begai

In recent years, Primal Fear bassist Mat Sinner has crossed over from the realms of metal and become a familiar face / presence to the mainstream rock crowd in parts of Europe. As one of the masterminds behind Rock Meets Classic – which is exactly what it sounds like – he has seen what started as a grand touring experiment morph into a highly anticipated packed-to-the-rafters annual event. Boasting the Mat Sinner Band and the Bohemian Symphony Orchestra Prague as its foundation, Rock Meets Classic is gearing up for its fifth run in March / April 2014 featuring some of the finest rock vocalists/musicians the ’70s and ’80s has to offer. Previous outings with Ian Gillan (Deep Purple), Steve Lukather (Toto), Lou Gramm (Foreigner), Dan McCafferty (Nazareth), Paul Rodgers (Bad Company), Chris Thompson (Manfred Mann’s Earth Band) and Eric Bazilian (The Hooters) went over a storm, appealing to everyone from the unwashed metalheads to the husbands / wives that get out maybe twice a year, to the 65+ year-old pensioners who dress their best for the occasion. The 2014 installment of Rock Meets Classic is shaping up to be another blast for everyone involved regardless of whether they’re on stage or in the audience.

And while their names may not fill the seats to the extent the featured artists do, Sinner is equally focused on enlisting top notch musicians as members of the Rock Meets Classic backbone. No small wonder the roster hasn’t changed very much since the first run and now features four-fifths of Primal Fear

“If I’m able to give jobs to my bandmates so that they make some decent money on a nice tour, I will,” says Sinner. “And there’s a social part to it, where for example I’m not going to give the drummer position away to another drummer when I have Randy Black. I know Randy can play all this stuff, he’s got the skills, and I know he’s a big fan of some of these singers. Everybody was very, very happy with him on the last Rock Meets Classic tour. He told me he had the time of his life, so of course he wants to do the tour next year. If I can give something back to these guys, there’s nothing wrong with that.” Continue reading ROCK MEETS CLASSIC – And When The Lights Go Down…

BW&BK 2012: The Scribes Speak Day 3 – Carl Begai

So, me and my extended BW&BK family have issued our individual Best Of 2012 lists because that’s the sort of thing you do in this biz as the new year kicks off. I’ve decided to post my long-winded overview of the last 12 months here, with a link provided leading to my Top 10 Albums list along with other honourable (and dishonourable) mentions…

It was a rollercoaster of a year, as they all are in the music biz.

From being blindsided by Halestorm’s new album The Strange Case Of… and becoming a fan against my will, to dealing with a fuckwit promo rep at Roadrunner Records who decided to change my questions in an email interview because she felt they were “too harsh” for her artist (um, shouldn’t that be for the artist to decide?), to bucket list interviews with Brighton Rock’s Gerry McGhee and the lovely Lita Ford, to witnessing some amazing shows on both sides of the pond, 2012 has been quite the adventure.

See the list here for the Hot and Not albums of my year, then pick apart my sanity at your leisure.

Gotta say that I was surprised at not being disappointed by any of the shows I was able to attend this year. The third annual European run of Rock Meets Classic featuring Ian Gillan (Deep Purple), Steve Lukather (Toto), Chris Thompson (Manfred Mann’s Earth Band), three-fifths of Primal Fear’s roster and Trillium vocalist Amanda Somerville was positively brilliant, with PF singer Ralf Scheepers going above and beyond lending his voice to the Toto hit ‘Rosanna’ (!). Watching Devin Townsend successfully manipulate a Motörhead crowd into doing his bidding was a gut-buster, seeing former Helloween members Michael Kiske and Kai Hansen on stage together with Unisonic belting out classics ‘I Want Out’ and ‘Future World’ was ’87 surreal, and the Leaves’ Eyes / Firewind tour that looked so weird on paper turned out to be one of the best gigs of the past 12 months.

Nightwish gets a scrapbook all its own due to a brilliant show in Nuremberg – featuring more pyro than the sun – and a day and night hanging with some of the finest people in the metal business. Continue reading BW&BK 2012: The Scribes Speak Day 3 – Carl Begai