{mosimage}The Germans Scorpions were visiting Tallinn, the Estonian capital, last week end during their Humanity Tour. After having missed them last summer in Tampere, I was not going to let this opportunity pass. So there I headed, being present not only in the show but also at the press conference 1 day before to bring you the last information from these veteran but spiritually youthful rockers!
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he appointment for the press conference is at the sixth floor o Swissotel, a luxurious new resort in the centre of Tallinn. The room is, as I expected, not much crowded, and after half an hour of delay the German band finally appears, wearing sunglasses and responding to the cold attitude of the shy Estonian journalists with good doses of humor. Vocalist Klaus Maine pinpoints how surprise they are about how fast Tallinn is changing, full of new modern buildings, while guitarist Rudolf Schenker makes clear that with their last album the band tries to come back to their roots and essence. These both are undoubtedly the ones leading the show, while the other members of the band keep silence most of the time, with just some opinions of Matthias Jabs sporadically. When an Estonian journalist makes the mistake to ask them which is the most stupid question they have ever been asked, the band answers immediately “This one!!!”.
{mosimage}Of course, being Scorpions a band that has written basically the unofficial anthem for the end of cold war: Wind of Change, it is normal that the Estonians ask them about their opinions of political happenings nowadays, and if they are thinking to write a “second” Wind of Change. As Klaus explains “we just reflect the world around us. We played in South America, in Tonga, in Siberia… and then we put all the impressions into songs”.
They also seem to be pleased to recall a visit to a small village in the middle of Amazonia, 2 hours from the city of Manaos in Brasil “There were like 35 people there, and they played their tribal music for us. Of course they had no idea who we were. Then they asked us to play something for us and we played Wind of Change for them. It was very emotive” said Schenker and Meine.
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Breaking the routine was also a repeated topic during the conference. No wonder then that this tour will have a bit of everything, with concerts played with an orchestra like in Riga and Vilnius, or an acoustic show in Estoril (Portugal) “It is fantastic to play with an orchestra. Also very demanding due to the planning, having two different conductors in those two concerts. It was 1 year ago the last time we played with an orchestra, and we wanted to do it again, but of course we cannot do it very often” answered Klaus. Rudolf Schenker also explained that in Estoril they are expecting some musicians from Brazil to join them and play together, including Sepultura´s musician Andreas Kisser, who already joined them during some gigs in his native country.
The band also remembered some good moments in the past like their shows decades in Russia at The Peace Festival in Moscow and the re-encounter in Tampere last summer after so many years with Sebastian Bach, who was also one of the stars of that festival in Russia with his band Skid Row. There was no more time for questions, and it seems that they were in a hurry to leave the conference room, so unfortunately no much time for pictures or chatting more with them. It was time to wait for the next day to see their live show, but before leaving Klaus promised that they were ready to rock the foundations of the Estonian capital.
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The concert took place at Saku Arena. A venue almost fully packed, with those people, the “children of tomorrow” turned into the adults of today who were anxious to see the Germans in action. Scorpions are not only much beloved in Russia, but also in the Baltic countries. When they jumped on stage, it was amazing to see their vitality, especially Rudolf Schenker jumping and running from one side to the other (I had him basically 10 centimeters away from me during the first songs, because I was placed in the photographs VIP area, the closest to the stage, and he almost stepped on my fingers…). The band mixed wisely some of the classics like Bad boys Running Wild, Blackout, Send me an Angel or Holiday with the newest ones, which sometimes received a colder response from the audience, although personally I liked Humanity, a song that sounds very “Scorpions” and fits very well in the setlist. Obviously the most emotive moment of the night was when Schenker started to scratch gently the acoustic guitar for extracting the first riffs of Wind of Change, massively sang by the Estonian audience. Klaus showed that he is still in excellent shape as lead vocalist, and the band put the cherry on top of the cake in the encore with some more classics like Still Loving you or the final explosion of Rock You like a Hurricane.
As Klaus Meine announced in the press conference: “in the end it is about music, to play old and new material to entertain people”. And certainly Scorpions accomplished the mission, stating why they are one of the biggest rock bands in the world.
Photos by Antonio Díaz and Merle Ruubel.