Live | Vengeance – Rockfabrik – Übach-Palenberg [Ger]

27 April 2024

As part of their 40^th Anniversary tour Vengeance‘s latest line up played at the Rockfabrik in Übach-Palenberg. In these 40 years, the band has gone through quite a few line up changes leaving vocalist and figurehead Leon Goewie the only remaining original member. For the last 15 to 20 years he seems to have had a kind of on-again, off-again relationship with the band. But every time he manages to gather people around him in a new form to either do a tour or record a new album. However, the last album, ‘Piece Of Cake’, is from back in 2013. Who knows, maybe the fire will go up a notch with this line up and there might be a new record in the future.

VENGEANCE 2024

Over the years, I saw quite a few of Vengeance‘s formations, with varying degrees of success. Besides the fact that I still consider the first records of these warriors of the Dutch Hard Rock scene to be classic pieces of work, I was certainly curious to see what the band would sound like in 2024.

The gig took place in the smaller Area3 of the Rockfabrik and there must have been about 100 enthusiasts of the band. Since the Rockfabrik is only a stone’s throw away from the border, the vast majority were Dutch. No reason for Leon to bring out his best German.

The show kicked off at 9 p.m. sharp with the intro to immediately pop with ,,Take It Or Leave It’’ and the surprising ,,Planet Zilch’’ from ‘Back From Flight 19’. The sound is good, the atmosphere is positive right away and Goewie has managed to keep his voice in top condition over the years. The duo of Johnny Dooms on bass and John Emmen on drums manages to lay a wonderfully fat cemented layer for guitarists Gert Nijboer and Serge Naberman. In addition, Naberman and Dooms also manage to produce convincing backing vocals.

Continuing this trip down memory lane with ,,Wait Until The Sun Goes Down’’ from the ‘Soul Collector’ album. Some ‘recent’ work [2009]. With ,,Take Me To The Limit’’ and ,,May Heaven Strike Me Down’’, we are once again dealing with über-classics. And the audience present clearly enjoys these performances and sings along at the top of their voices.

TIMELESS HARD AND HEAVY CLASSICS

With ,,Dreamworld’’ we seem to be back in 1986 with the time machine. It is clear that Vengeance managed to produce some timeless hard and heavy classics in the 80s and Goewie is very aware of that.
With ,,If Loving You Is Wrong’’ they slow things down for a moment, but that really only lasts for a very short time because with ,,Power Of The Rock’’ they immediately speed up again. ,,Soul Collector’’ is the 3rd slightly newer song, but it is clear that this performance is mainly songs from the 80s records. Their early  and probably the most successful years of the band. ,,Wallbanger’’ is from the 1989 ‘Arabia’ album and with ,,Down And Out’’ and ,,Deathride To Glory’’ we reach back to the band’s first album, released in 1984.

UNPREDICTABLE

The party song par excellence is of course ,,Rock’n’Roll Shower’’, also famous because the guitar riff was the opening tune of Dutch radio show Vara’s Vuurwerk. Goewie was also known as the unpredictable man on stage but today he concentrated mainly on the vocals. However, during ,,Rock ‘n’ Roll Shower’’ he does take a little shower by emptying a big pint of beer over his head.

,,Arabia’’ is the song to close the set list, but with ,,She Is The Woman’’ an encore is played. Then, however, the party really is over. I have seen a driven band at work and if they can keep this up, I wouldn’t mind Vengeance releasing new work in the near future. In any case, this trip down memory lane was very enjoyable. To focus mainly on the first 4 albums was a clever move. A successful 40th anniversary performance!!

The saying from the 80s is still relevant today:

‘DO YOU HATE HARD ROCK ???? – GUESS YOU’VE NEVER SEEN…. VENGEANCE !!!!!’

All photos by Raymond Helebrand