Latest LIVE Listening Pleasure... U.D.O.

Mike and I got to the Back Bar about 8 o'clock Wednesday night.  Walking in, we passed the tour bus and a smaller nice van.  I noticed the door of the tour bus open so I went around the van to the open door and there was Francesco, U.D.O.'s drummer, having a smoke.  I greeted him, told him I was a great big fan, and asked if there was any chance I could meet Udo.  Well, I had to try.  He was nice and said no way before the show.  (After the show it was pouring rain so we didn't even try to get him off the bus.)  I heard somewhere later that Udo was under the weather that night, just hearsay though.

We got into the place with plenty of time to check it out before U.D.O. hit the stage.  We didn't see much of the first band, the second band was Halcyon Way.  We had both heard of them before but were less than impressed with them for a variety of reasons.  Now, my knee has been acting up lately, so I brought my cane so I would have something to lean on, expecting to be standing for a couple hours .  Well, when the second band was done I just walked straight up to directly in front of center stage and wound up staying right there, front and center, leaning on the stage for the whole show.  I keep telling myself that I'm getting too old to fight those crowds close to the stage - and I am - but the smaller venue and crowd of very friendly fellow metal heads made everything okay.  There was no jostling for position, no fights, no moshing.  I guess we're all getting a bit older.

You saw the pre-show vid a couple posts ago, here is the show opening - Rev-Raptor.


This was the first time I took a camera to a show since I snuck in my little Kodak film camera (that I can't remember what it was called, instamatic 110, maybe?) to the Kiss Animalize concert back in late '84 or early '85.  (In fact, Udo was with Accept then and opened for that show.)  Back then you could get kicked out for having a camera still, so using a flash bar was out of the question.  But even without a flash I got some memorable pictures, if a bit dark.  I was real close to the front then and I remember Gene and Paul separately actually posing for me briefly when they saw my camera.

During U.D.O. the camera was a distraction to my fun.  In the opener above, Rev-Raptor, my arm kept dropping because I wasn't looking at it, I was watching the show in front of my face and not the little screen.  I got better, and made a better effort with the second video, Man and Machine and 24/7, below.  Youtube's video editor made my videos a bit smoother and I think they turned out pretty good.  I'm especially happy with the sound.  Just look around at some other live homemade videos at very loud concerts and you will hear what I feared.

Anyway, on with the show!  Here is Man And Machine and 24/7!


Shortly after this vid I just put the camera away for good.  I felt I had enough for a first time trying and besides, I saw so many other people recording it I figured I would be able to find other videos of the show on youtube eventually.  And a few are already out there, just look for my hat down in front, or in this video of Metal Heart, taken just on my right, I make a noticeable appearance in the lower left  starting at about the 2:40 mark!  I was going to link it but what the hell, embedded it is!


U.D.O. is a great, heavy, steady, live band.  I have all their dvds and have watched tons of live stuff youtube.  They do what they do very well and this night was no exception.  Thanks, guys.