Scorpions are a German rock band formed in 1965 in Hanover by Rudolf Schenker. Since the band’s inception, its musical style has ranged from hard rock to heavy metal. The lineup from 1978–92 was the most successful incarnation of the group, and included Klaus Meine (vocals), Rudolf Schenker (rhythm guitar), Matthias Jabs (lead guitar), Francis Buchholz (bass guitar), and Herman Rarebell (drums). The band’s only constant member is Rudolf Schenker, although Meine has been the lead singer for all of the band’s studio albums, and Jabs has been a consistent member since 1979. (More from Wikipedia)
Scorpions for example were fairly prominent in the early days of MTV and had several hit songs in that period. They are perhaps best known for their 1984 song “Rock You Like a Hurricane” that still gets a lot of play on oldies radio stations, but you might also remember “No One Like You” and the power ballad “Send Me an Angel”. After Uriah Heep at the end of the previous year, they were only the second Western rock band to perform in the Soviet Union (in 1988).
Most people don’t know that Scorpions is a German band, having been founded by guitarist Rudolf Schenker in 1965 and still together. They are among the most innovative hard rock bands of the 1970’s – long before they had any American hits – and I was fortunate enough to gather a collection from this period in an album called Best of Scorpions that I was expecting to be drawn from their 1980’s hits.
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One of their most high-profile moments was at the concert event The Wall – Live in Berlin, a July 1990 performance of the 1980 Pink Floyd album The Wall at the site of the Berlin Wall that had come down eight months previously. The concert was organized by Roger Waters, who had been the frontman for the band during their hitmaking period in the 1970’s and early 1980’s, though he left Pink Floyd in 1985 over creative differences and attempted to prevent the other bandmembers from continuing to use the name (they settled out of court in 1987).
Roger Waters had said during an interview in July 1989 that the only way he would perform The Wall live again was “if the Berlin Wall came down” – and four months later, it did. Attendance at the concert site itself was a record-breaking 450,000, and it was also broadcast live worldwide. Scorpions opened the concert with “In the Flesh” and also performed on three other songs. Guest artists included Cyndi Lauper, Marianne Faithfull, Thomas Dolby, Sinéad O’Connor, Joni Mitchell, Van Morrison, Bryan Adams, and Levon Helm and Garth Hudson of the Band. Tim Curry, Albert Finney, Ute Lemper and Jerry Hall are actors who also performed, mostly during “the Trial” sequence toward the end. As the concert was performed, a gigantic wall (550 feet long and 82 feet high) that appeared to be made of large styrofoam blocks was completed; at the end of the trial, the judge declared: “Tear down the Wall!”, and the wall was pushed over, row by row.
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Rudolf Schenker’s younger brother Michael Schenker was a member of a British hard rock band called UFO during their most successful period in the mid-1970’s. The band was named after the famed UFO Club (pronounced “you foe” or “oo foe”) in London that had been the epicenter for British psychedelic and underground rock in the 1960’s. Michael had periodically performed with his brother’s band Scorpions and formed the Michael Schenker Group in 1979; this band also is active to this day.
(April 2013)
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Items: Scorpions
