“Music is extremely powerful, it has the power to bring back memories. It has the power to take you away from
troubles or worries. It can make you feel happy, sad, powerful, rejoiceful or even relaxed. It can put you into a
story, be it fact or fictional. It can spark the emotion of a love lost. It can make your body physically want to move.
It has the power to move the listener’s soul”.
And the press release kind of sums it all up as to the reason we love Rock and Roll, but is it an excuse for 2CD 32-track covers album? Well probably. Years ago it appears Bonfire’s Hans Ziller had the idea to put together a concert tour, with legendary singers performing their most renowned songs, and Bonfire providing the magic of the music. Of course that never came to pass, but over the years songs were recorded, some released and now they’ve all been re=recorded by the current line-up o the band with Alex Stahl on vocals, Hans Ziller and Frank Pané on guitars, Ronnie Parkes on bass, Tim Breideband on drums and the addition of Paul Morris on keyboards.
As a listener what’s most interesting about the album is that some bands are the subject of a trio of covers whilst other bands get one singe track, and as artists go its a more than interesting mix as for every Rainbow (represented by 5 tracks: ‘Death Alley Driver’; ‘Black Masquerade’; ‘Stone Cold’; ‘Man on the Silver Mountain’ and ‘I Surrender’) there’s a less widely known band like Hardline (represented by the classic ‘Hot Cherie’ and ‘Dr. Love.’) Indeed it appears that Bonfire subscribe to the same standard as I do – a good song is a good song irrespective of the stature of the band involved.
I could say that the album is a bit hit and miss but in truth that would be a lie as the band put on a great show it’s just that some of the songs I’m not overly keen on, I mean I love Toto’s ‘Hold the Line’ it’s probably one of the best Rock songs ever written but I could seriously do without ever hearing ‘Africa’ let alone the monstrous ‘Rosanna’ ever again – and it’s those three tracks that open the album!
Elsewhere for every inspired pairing – for Survivor of course that’s ‘Eye of the Tiger’ and ‘Caught in the Game’ there’s a Desmond Child and Dianne Warren written ‘Save Up All Your Tears’ covered by the likes of Bonnie Tyler, Cher and Robin Beck (who also gets the awful ‘The First Time’ – another song she didn’t write, and ‘Tears in the Rain’ another Warren/Child composition covered here.) Though I appreciate Robin Beck was rather big in Germany in the 80’s it does rather bring back acutely that there was an awful lot of middle of the road uninspired shit foisted upon us by labels looking for ‘hits’ about in the 80’s too.
Thankfully the album is far more weighted to the greats and the wonderful songs of the likes of UFO (one of the greatest bands of all time at their peak); Queensryche (Some great covers); House of Lords (‘Love Don’t Lie’ and ‘I Wanna be Loved’). There are also a few inspired but odd choices such as Deep Purple’s ‘King of Dreams’; Grave Digger’s ‘Heavy Metal Breakdown’ and Jeff Buckley’s rather stand alone ‘Hallelujah’ which is of course a great song but rather out of place in this company.
The album is rounded out by three German language songs ‘Frei Wei Die Geier’ and ‘Alt Wie Ein Baum’ originally by Puhdys which sound great, and ‘Erinnerung’ by those same East German legends which menders a little, again a great song but a little out of place.
The press release ends wit the following worsd which say it all really…
“Music once admitted to the soul, becomes a sort of spirit that never dies”
As covers albums go this one is a pleasure.
