Archive:
Uli jon roth 9-26-2008 TIME OUT Concord, CA
By winter turned the meadow around (Star_rider) on Sunday, September 28, 2008 - 10:58 am: Edit Postuli jon roth and the sky of avalon band:
Uli Jon Roth vocals and sky guitar
Corvin Bahn keyboards
Michael Ehré drums
Niklas Turmann guitar
Martin Motnik bass (ritter bass--blue lighted fret markers)
Liz Vandall vocals
Mark Boals vocals
(set list incomplete) opened with
Firewind
(then went into the under a dark sky LP)
starting with S.O.S/Tempus Fugit
...
We'll Burn the Sky
Fly to the Rainbow
Little Wing
keyboardist had two laptops, one for the keyboards, the other played back backing tracks. band seemed best when it wasn't using the backing tracks, e.g. mostly during the non-under a dark sky stuff, although then the drums were a bit lacking (not an attack on michael ehré, the album is difficult to present) as some of those backing tracks were drums.... also there were vocal tracks--I'll presume the sky of avalon choir.
uli's sky guitar was cool with more frets than I think I've ever seen on an electric guitar. he had this vibesmagic or vibesxxxx that was on a conduit on a stand and looked a bit like a microphone, he could more or less place over a string on the fret and get cool vibrato from it. may have been laser driven as you could see light emitting from it when he backed away from it.
the new material seemed a tad too orchestral for me initially, but I did like it. although they did do one piece that was like 18 minutes long before you got the ripping uli solo (dance of the lemmings/tanz der lemminge or something, I think) to close out the Under a Dark Sky portion of the show
stage was too small to contain the band. the keyboardist was actually on the main floor to the right of the stage if uli is on the left. crowd was faily well behaved. understandable when most of the audience was at least 40 years old.
merchandise included $30 T-shirts 3 different ones, the new CD $20, some band members stuff, and one DVD/2CD combo from the 2006 uli tour.