Some Festivals make big announcements and they stick to their promises.
Others just make big announcements in order to gget your money and then tell about their change of plans on the last minute.
Take a look to the poster of the Nancy On The Rocks Festival on the left. Below the Scorpions logo there are the names of former members Uli Jon Roth, Michael Schenker, Herman Rarebell and Rudy Lenners. How do you understand the sentence “The Scorpions Family reunited for a final Sting”? It seems that those former members would be invited as special guests during this unique Scorpions show, right?
Well, what was supposed to be one of the greatest festivals of 2012 turned into a huge deception.
The positive points are that most of the bands played good shows and had a good sound.
The location was also very nice: the festival was held at the outdoors amphitheatre of the Zénith of Nancy, a great place for summer concerts. There was also a small stage near the entrance door.
Sadly, the festival was very bad organized. Here are some examples: Bands started to play at 1pm, but the time printed on the tickets was 7PM! They didn't wanted us to see the first bands or what?
When getting into the festival, there was no programme with the bands schedule. One could freely go from the pit to the seating space, so we wondered why they arranged 3 different ticket prices. Food and drink prices were very expensive. What about paying 4€ for a small 25cl beer, 3€ for a coffee?
Oh, and you couldn’t keep the top of the bottle. Officially for “security reasons”, but we all know it really was because we would drink faster and buy another one. By the way, if they really cared about security, there would have been rubbish bins to throw the bottles. Or they would have given the dinks in plastic glasses. In just a couple of hours, the floor was entirely covered by bottles and I saw a couple of persons falling down because of this.
Besides Scorpions the other bands I saw were Koritni, Pat McManus, Karelia, Gamma Ray and Uli Jon Roth.
Oh, take a look at the poster again. Isn’t Uli Jon Roth supposed to play as a guest of Scorpions?
According to this, he wasn’t meant to play with his band...
That was the last minute solution found by the organizers so the “Scorpions guests” could play.
Here’s what happened: months ago, Scorpions refused to play a show with Lenners, Schenker and Rarebell. The organizers of Nancy On The Rocks, fearing that people would ask for a refund, didn’t tell anything and maintained the announcement of the special guests as if nothing had happened.
So, they asked Uli Roth to play with with Lenners, Schenker and Rarebell, but they never updated us on this. Until the day of the show, the organizers maintained their dishonest behaviour.
Koritni had just started when I arrived to the Nancy On The Rocks fest. They were the last band to play at the small stage.
It was short, but it was a great way to start the day!
They gave us a great moment of rock'n'roll and I really hope that they got more people into their music. Their latest record Welcome To The Crossroads is really good. They definitely deserved to play on the .large stage.
Pat McManus was the first act to play the main stage at the Zénith Amphitheatre.
He tours France with his band quite often, but I had never the chance to see him performing live.
To be honest, I don’t know all of his works on solo or with Mama’s Boys, but I’d hear many good things about, so I was really excited about this show.
The starting song was Danger Zone, which was followed by Ready to Rock. Indeed, the trio was ready to rock, and so were we! That’s a rock’n’roll trio that swings and shakes, while keeping melody and virtuosity. Pat also played violin during the song Belfast Boy, which was dedicated to the late Gary Moore.
I didn’t know most of the songs they played, but I loved the show and it wasn’t difficult to get in the mood.
There was a real synergy between all 3 musicians, who delivered a high quality performance during 40 minutes.
Karelia is a band that has supported Scorpions on several dates of their Sting In The Tail Tour.
I'm not really into their music and I think the have to work out the communication with the audience.
I can't say that the band rocks so I went to sit down. The best moment of the show was when Lex Koritni was invited on stage to play the song Attitude from the Misfits.
Then came Gamma Ray with a serious discharge of Heavy Metal!
It was a pleasure to see this band on stage again, bringing mostly fast songs.
The crowds were not very reactive and remained quite calm. Nevertheless the band did a great job on stage, their show was wild!
Scorpions were supposed to bring some friends on stage but this didn't happen. Only Uli Jon Roth performed a song with them, while Herman Rarebell, Michael Schenker and Rudy Lenners were announced.
The band played a very good show but it was very disappointing that the festival didn't keep its promises.
Uli Jon Roth was supposed to be a guest for Scorpions and was not supposed to play wiith his band.
His band ended being the last to perform at the festival, due to organization problems.
There were lots of old Scorpions songs that they don't play anymore, some of them performed with Rudy Lenners or Herman Rarebell.
Version Française sur heavynews.fr: partie 1 et partie 2.
