Who Are The Scorpions?
The Scorpions came out of Hannover, Germany, in 1965, founded by guitarist Rudolf Schenker. Klaus Meine joined in the late 1960s, and the band eventually developed into the classic 1970s lineup of Meine, Schenker, guitarist Uli Jon Roth, bassist Francis Buchholz, and drummer Herman Rarebell. Their early records established them as an ambitious hard-rock band, but by the time of Taken by Force in 1977 they had become something stranger and more adventurous: a heavy-rock band with one boot in the future and the other in a very loud pair of platform shoes.
Tokyo Tapes – The Album Review
There are records that sound like a concert, and then there are records that sound like somebody accidentally left the doors of the universe open. Tokyo Tapes, recorded by the Scorpions in Tokyo in April 1978, belongs to the second category. It is loud, melodic, dangerous, occasionally ridiculous, and completely alive. It is also one of those rare live albums where you can almost smell the electricity.
The concerts on April 24 and 27 were recorded using the Tamco Recording Mobile, with Tamotsu Yoshida engineering. Producer Dieter Dierks subsequently mixed the recordings at his studio in Stommeln, near Cologne. This matters because Tokyo Tapes does not have the suspicious cleanliness of a modern live album. You hear a band playing together rather than five people waiting politely for their overdubs. The audience is part of the machinery. The guitars have teeth. Rarebell’s drums sound as if they have recently been informed that civilization is ending.
And then there is Uli Jon Roth.
Roth was leaving the band, making these performances the final recordings of his Scorpions tenure. His guitar playing is the album’s wild animal. On “Polar Nights,” “Dark Lady,” and especially “Fly to the Rainbow,” he sounds less like a conventional hard-rock guitarist than a man trying to communicate with the moon using electricity.
“Speedy’s Coming” is pure rocket fuel, while “Top of the Bill” has the swagger of a band that knows it has finally arrived. “In Trance” slows the machinery down and lets the atmosphere become enormous. “We’ll Burn the Sky” is perhaps the emotional masterpiece: Meine sings with extraordinary tenderness while Roth turns the guitar into something almost orchestral. It is beautiful in the way a thunderstorm can be beautiful if you are safely indoors.
And then comes “Robot Man,” which is exactly the sort of title a 1970s German rock band should have been legally required to record. It stomps forward with cheerful mechanical menace.
The album was first released in 1978 and became the Scorpions’ first live album. Later editions restored material omitted from the original release, including “Polar Nights” and additional performances.
What makes Tokyo Tapes extraordinary is that it captures a band at a crossroads. The Scorpions were about to change direction. The enormous international success of Lovedrive was waiting around the corner.
Here they were in Tokyo, five musicians, two recorded nights, and a room full of people making enough noise to bend history.
The Vinyl Review
Bought for a tenner from BPM Records in Derby, UK this is a classic live album by one of rock and metal’s great live bands. There is the odd bit of scuffing on the cover sleeve and natural signs of a little wear and tear, natural for it’s age as this version came out in 1983 via RCA. The vinyl itself plays like a dream with no scratches or no other issues.
Donnie’s Rating: 10/10
