Dirkschneider -  The Orpheum - Tampa, Florida - April 1st, 2018

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 Dirkschneider brought their style of classic heavy metal to a well attended show at The Orpheum in Tampa Florida on April 1st. The band has been touring and performing all Accept material since 2016, if you're not in the know Dirkschneider is only one band of former Accept frontman Udo Dirkschneider, this concert tour, the Back to the Roots - Farewell to Accept tour has been billed as the last tour where he will play solely Accept material.  From here on out he will concentrate on his solo material in the U.D.O. band and, according to Udo himself, he will no longer perform any Accept songs once this tour has ended. He feels as though it is time to move on and close the book on the Accept songs that have made him a household name and true legend on the Heavy Metal scene. Dirkschneider performed at The Orpheum back in January of 2017, the tour was supposed to have ended by now but has proven to be such a success that it has been extended.

 

 On the bill tonight were 3 other bands performing before Dirkschneider took the stage. The local openers The Prosecution, well known Tampa based band Archangel and Elm Street, a band from Australia who have been on the road with Dirkschneider since February. We arrived in time to see all of the bands on the bill, they were all a great choice for openers as their style of Metal meshed nicely with the headline act. Of note this is the first time that we've had the pleasure of seeing Elm Street, we were highly impressed! The band performed 6 of their original songs and a cover of Quite Riot's Bang Your Head (Metal Health)  All were great musicians with the vocalist having a raspy / growling type of voice that fit their musical technique perfectly!

 

 As we waited with anticipation for Dirkschneider to take the stage we checked out the huge amount of band merchandise for sale. To say that we've been to a lot of shows would be an understatement, this was the most band merchandise that we've seen for sale for any one band! There was a huge selection of T -shirts, Cd's and dvd's, autographed drumheads, guitar picks and even a couple of Udo's stage worn and autographed clothing items!

When it got close to show time I headed for the photo pit, this was unusual because The Orpheum never has a photo pit for concerts, usually to do any concert photography you have to shoot pics. From the crowd. I don't know if it's something that Dirkschneider specifically requested for The Orpheum to supply or if it travels with the band to different venues but it was a nice change from the usual Orpheum photography chaos. There were about 4 or 5 other photographers in the pit, while it was very nice to even have a photo pit, it was fairly narrow so once you picked your spot you were pretty much stuck there for the first 3 songs.

 

 As the band's intro music started playing over the p.a. system they took to the stage with it being lit by green lights, not the best color lights for photographing a band! Udo himself took to the stage after the other band members, he looks and sounds almost exactly like he did 30 years ago, he never changes!  The other members of Dirkschneider for this show were guitarist Bill Hudson, guitarist Andrey Smirnov, bassist Fitty Wienhold and Udo's son Sven Dirkschneider, on drums. This crowd was hungry to see, and hear, these Accept tunes performed by the original voice of Accept and they were not disappointed. The band ripped through a great set of 20 songs with the occasional crowd banter thrown in by Udo himself.

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 Both guitarists and the bassist had long, Heavy Metal style hair and clothing while Udo and his Son had much shorter hair with Udo wearing all black with a camouflage jacket and a few silver chains around his neck. After all, Heavy Metal is a visual as well as aural spectacle and Udo Dirkschneider, during his time with Accept, helped define the sound of Speed and Thrash Metal. There were a couple of ballads in the setlist such as Can't Stand the Night and Amamos la Vida, those were the only times the frenetic pace let up, other than those 2 songs it was full out, Balls to the Wall headbanging! (see what I did there?)The band left the stage leaving the audience exhausted but wanting more, after a short break they came back onstage to cheers from the crowd and performed what are arguably 4 of Accept's best known songs, Princess of the Dawn (with a loud audience participation at the urging of Udo), Metal Heart, Fast as a Shark and their final song of the evening, a song that any casual fan of Accept knows by heart as MTV played it in constant rotation "back in the day" Balls to the Wall.

 

 We would like to thank Dustin Hardman from AFM Records for setting everything up for us. It was a great show that we were very glad to have attended, especially since this is the last chance to hear Udo doing the Accept material.

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Setlist​

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The Beast Inside

Aiming High

Bulletproof

Midnight Mover

Living for Tonite

Another Second to Be

Fight It Back

Can't Stand the Night

Amamos la Vida

London Leatherboys

Up to the Limit

Breaker

Screaming for a Love-Bite

Love Child

Objection Overruled

Russian Roulette

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Encore

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Princess of the Dawn

Metal Heart

Fast as a Shark

Balls to the Wall

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