By Petra Leusmann, Rock At Night Germany Correspondent
Venue: Freizeitzentrum West (FZW), Dortmund, Germany-February 12, 2016–Black Stone Cherry with Toseland
What a great way to spend a Friday night out. I had never seen Black Stone Cherry live so far (yes, shame on me) but I heard a lot about them being an awesome live act. So I was accordingly curious. To cut to the point, I was not disappointed at all.
But let’s start from the beginning….The venue (1,500 people can fit in there) was really crowded right from the beginning. A wide range of people of different age and music taste crowded into the venue and were obviously all Rock’n’Roll music lovers.
7.00 p.m. sharp, the lights went out and the support band approached the stage. Actually I was expecting to see Theory of a Deadman but it was a British band called Toseland instead. Theory of a Deadman had secluded themselves shortly before the tour started (note to self: try to find out what happened), so Toseland played—and what an excellent choice that was! They did a great job! They were much more than just a warm-upper for BSC– they had the audience eating out of their hands within the first 5 minutes on stage.
Here is a little background info on Toseland that I discovered. The band centers around singer James Toseland (ex-motorbike racer, married to Katie Melua) rocked the crowed for about 40 minutes with 9 songs. More about Toseland at Rock At Night to come soon, stay tuned…
But nevertheless everybody was secretly awaiting Black Stone Cherry to come on. And how they did it, opening the show with “Me and Mary Jane”. They ruled the gig from the very first second! I could feel the energetic fun the guys had with every single tone they performed. The music was wild, spontaneous, dirty, fresh and loud…just a rock ‘n’ roll should be!
Guitarist Ben Wells and bassist Jon Lawton were like bouncing balls, hurtling over the stage. The powerful pounding drummer John Fred Young swirled his drumsticks around that it was like a bursting firework flames. Singer Chris Robertson was a calming fixing point that maintained his stature between his band mates–but his limited action was made up by his even, nonetheless forceful singing and guitar playing.
When it was time for the drum solo I felt Young stopped a bit behind his abilities. But he also surprised the audience with a little harmonica playing during his solo. After that Black Stone Cherry came back with a very quite song “The Rambler” and prove that the also master softer sounds perfectly.
Unfortunately the show lasted only about 70 minutes and they left us with “Blame It On The Boom Boom”.
But of course nobody wanted to let them go without an encore. After “Lonely Rain” they finished their high-powered evening with Motörhead’s “Ace Of Spades”. What a brilliant finale!
LISTEN to Rock At Night’s Pod-Cast interview with James TOSELAND
PHOTO GALLERY
BLACK STONE CHERRY and TOSELAND
Videos
Snippet from Dortmund-Black Stone Cherry
Black Stone Chery – “In Our Dreams”
Toseland-“Puppet on a Chain”
Setlist for Black Stone Cherry
- Rain Wizard
- Blind Man
- In MY Blood
- Ghost Of Floyd Collins
- Yeah man
- Holding On … To Letting Go
- Soulcreek
- Things My Father Said
- In Our Dreams
- Drum Solo
- The Rambler
- Maybe Someday
- White Trash Millionaire
- Blame It On The Boom Boom
Encore:
- Lonely Train
- Ace Of Spades
FACEBOOK WEBSITE-Black Stone Cherry
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I've always been into rock music and over the years hard, heavy and Metal have been added. Today it's a wide and wild mix from classic rock over to glam and powermetal from NWOBHM to melodic hard rock and blues.
As I was not very successful becoming a guitarist myself, but always wanted to be closer to the business, I started with rock music photography. I think I found my passion here. When taking photos at rock and Metal gigs I'm definitely enjoying every second.
Being German makes it sometimes hard to write in a language which is not my mother tongue.
But I find it cracking that rock music is an international language and is understood all over the planet.
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