Stung by the Scorpions
THE BEGINNING
Last time, when we were in Shillong, covering the autumn festival in November, we heard a buzz doing the rounds that Scorpions was coming down to India for a tour. And that Shillong was among their tour dates.
Now, wait a minute! SCORPIONS??? Did I hear that right? The German juggernaut coming right down to rock the friendly neighbourhood. I thought it was a joke. Or it must be a case like Paul Di’anno or Eric Martin who were publicised as Iron Maiden and Mr. Big respectively. It must be Michael Schenker Group or some estranged member of the Scorpions who decided to visit the land. Moreover, there were no hoardings or ads or posters which said that they would be coming down. “Has to be a joke,” I thought.
A few days, screaming bosses, drinking binges, late nights and football matches later, a friend of mine calls up and he asks me which group of backstabbing friends I was going to Shillong with? When I asked him ‘why’, he started singing ‘Rock you like hurricane’. I had almost forgotten... “So is it really true?,” I thought. I had to find out the facts. I told my friend I would get back later and got ready for punishment... err I mean office.
So here I am, stuck in the traffic and scanning the smoggy skyline. What was that? I see a huge hoarding near the fly-over and I could see Klaus, Mathias, Rudolf, James and the new bassist posing like they are about to land from the sky. OH MY GOD!!! It was true... The Scorpions were going to be in Shillong. I had to be there. I called up another friend of mine and after a lot of persuasion and promises of free drinks, he agreed to be a partner in the pilgrimage.
THE TRIP
I dread getting up in the morning, especially when I know I’ve got some deadlines to work on. But surprisingly, on the day of the concert, 12th of December 2007 to be precise, I managed to wake up at 6 a.m., and that too without a hangover. Ahh! The magic of Scorpions. We had planned to leave Guwahati by 7 a.m. This was a good start. I got a few things together, stuffed them into a bag and got ready for the drive to Shillong.
We hit the highway by 8 and immediately got a bad, bad news – it was a dry day in Shillong. So we picked up the ‘essential commodities’ on the way and were on our way.
The preparations started in the car itself and we were helping ourselves with the liquids. We were just one of the many vehicles that was on its way to the concert... it was going to be one helluva show.
Just when we had crossed Barapani, we passed a convoy of SUV’s, all black with ‘SCORPIONS’ emblazoned on their number plates. They were on their way to pick up the band.
We reached Shillong in the noon and immediately checked into our hotel. We ordered for lunch and got down to the final preparations – tanked up till our throats, ample supply of smokes, warm clothes (it is damn cold in Shillong around that time) and checked our vocal chords with some blood-curdling screams... we’d have to sing along. A few more of our friends joined us by that time and we were ready.
I wanted to catch a glimpse of the opening act, Akhia. Wanted to check out who were the lucky ones and also to hear their music. But as none of my ‘music-loving’ friends shared the same interest as me, so I ended up starting late for the venue.
The venue, Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, was packed and reaching a bit late did not help us at all. We parked our car, and headed towards the arena with a single motive – rock our hearts out and live a dream.
By the time we entered the premises, Akhia had already wrapped up their set and a crowd of around 25,000 were staring at the humongous empty stage, waiting in fuelled anticipation. We had bought tickets for the stage-front area and surprisingly, so had most of the people, half of whom we already knew from Guwahati. ...And we thought we had the best seats!
So, here we were at last, waiting to get the feel of the legendary Scorpion sting. The immense look and feel of the atmosphere immediately transported me to the live videos that we keep watching on TV, always wishing we were there. And now we were actually going to be there and do that.
THE STING
Suddenly the stage lights came on and all of us, including a stoned bugger who we thought wouldn’t even live long enough to hear the first note, turned to see the Scorpions drummer, James Kottak, take the stage and seat himself on the kit.
He started a drum-roll and Mathias Jabs, Rudolf Schenker and the bassist Pawel Maciwoda kicked in with a monstrous riff.
“Time is a wicked master...” Klaus Meine’s trademark vocals came pouring out through one lakh plus watts of sound. The Scorpions kicked off the show with their opening track ‘321’ from their latest studio off ering ‘Humanity Hour 1’. The moment, that we all were waiting for, had just arrived.
It took me over 15 minutes to comprehend the fact that I was watching some of my favourite rock-stars, in flesh. The crowd was literally going crazy and all of us started to sing along with the band, latching on to each syllable uttered by them.
The Scorpions then went on to play a couple of more songs from their Humanity album mixed with their old classics like ‘Bad boys running wild’ and ‘Big city nights’. Out came the lighters when they started playing ‘Winds of Change’ and ‘Always somewhere’.
“But when are they going to play ‘Rock you like a hurricane’?”... I thought. They did, eventually, accompanied by fireworks in the sky. And my my, were we rocked like a hurricane.
THE AFTERMATH
The show ended as quickly as it had started and we were left dazed and awestruck by them. Mind numbing stage presence and that too from a band whose three of the five members are in their fifties (yeah, it’s true)! But in my mind I was still a little disappointed, because they didn’t play ‘No one like you’.
We all went back to the hotel trying to recollect what had just passed – a milestone in our lives. A memory etched in our tiny, dimwitted brains, too preoccupied with trivial things to actually understand what the theme of their song “Humanity” means...
So till the next concert... Keep ROCKIN’ n ROLLIN’.
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