So here it is.
I was slightly delayed, so my trip to Vienna was a bit stressful. I arrived to the venue just 2 minutes before the scheduled "official" start and was a bit worried about the tickets pickup. I was surprised by the number of profiteers trying to sell tickets outside of the venue, I kinda thought this just happens in my great post-socialist country but apparently not. But fortunately everything went well, I got to my seat like 1 minute before they came to the stage, great timing
As I'm looking through the setlist I wrote down earlier, I'm not sure about the order of the songs before R&J.
Border rev was a good opener, I liked What it is much more than on any live rec (simfy also) so far. Prairie wed could have been changed with Cleaning MG or at least with Why Aye Man. Before Prairie wed, MK had a speech about the stool thing. He seemed quite relaxed to me, even joked that he sometimes hits the left side of the stool with his left elbow and it forces him to play something different that he is supposed to.
Coyote was very good, loved Glenn's bass, no MFN part. HFB was definitely the first highlight of the show. R&J was as usual. SoS, well at least it had a perfect twiddly bit solo at the end. Then came the intro of the band, after that Farewell to Bonaparte. I really can't stand the melody, at least I had time to take some pictures. Marbletown was another highlight, nice playing by Mike McG and John McC. Speedway was great, although I think it was a bit shorter because Richard changed his guitar very quickly, of course another highlight of the show. TR, it was alright, but lacked some energy in the first half of the song, imho the last good TR was in 2005.
After TR, people jumped out of their seats and ran in front of the stage. I Got Lucky, because my seat was just near the aisle, so I was able to get right in front of the stage between Richard and MK, yay!! There was a guy standing right beside me, he looked very much like Isaac Sh., it was probably him. He wasn't jumping or singing or anything like that, I guess he had to be tired after 65 shows already.
Great version of BIA, I was very surprised. I like the versions with snare drums much more, but this BIA was great, very powerful solo, MK was very enjoying playing it.
SFA was good too, especially when we were all having a great time right in front of the stage. For a bit I was worried that there was not going to be Piper, but sure enough after a coupla minutes they came back and played it.
There are some things I have to point out.
The sound in Stadthalle is kinda not balanced. I was sitting in the "middle right", but could not really hear John McC. But on the other hand I think the sound was a bit louder than on the last tour, it was now much better. Too much Mike McG imho (in SAN, in TR). TR was very "folky", or how should I say it. First MKs solo was missing and there were almost no snare drums (just in the outro), I was kinda disappointed.
MKs playing - oh well. On some songs it was very very good, like WII, HFB, SAN. I guess these songs fit him very well (BIA was great too). But SOS, TR and Coyote - here MK seemed often to just slide on the neck trying to find tones, he certainly wasn't doing any fast licks. SOS even lacked the 1st part of the quick licks (where the band usually speeds the tempo up a bit). TR Outro was also not very convincing to me, the same goes for Coyote.
But great show overall, it was my only one this tour, I really enjoyed it.
haha it was gonna be a short review...
