Skies are Cryin’

There was a cloud over Saturday’s show by Bonn’s Sunny Skies with the recent death of Xaver Drexler who had been standing in for the sick Alex Krienke. Despite, or perhaps because of, this they still almost blew the Harmonie roof off with some powerful hard rock riffs ‘in memorium’.

If seasoned veterans of Bonn’s music scene are thinking  “Another Year, another Sunny Skies concert at the Harmonie. Oh yes, ‘The Skies’, they do good covers of pop songs. Have done for years. Old Band, old songs, old audience, old ideas…” they had better think again.  At any rate, readers of my reviews will know that’s not the case;  and each time I hear Sunny Skies the band brings new ideas and presents an ever more intriguing musical mixture.

What’s in a name? Sunny Skies suggests a ‘sunny’ mixture of easy on the ear pop songs sung from a beer garden stage on a sultry Summer evening. Hearing the band live these days though is like opening a tin of baked beans to find chilli beans inside. There’s a core of Hard Rock in the band members, and it’s rather in the nature of Rock that’s boiling under the surface to ultimately find an out.  In Sunny Skies’s case this means that old set favourites like ‘American Pie’ and ‘Music’ have gradually given way – first to acoustic versions of Zeppelin’s ‘Stairway to Heaven’ and Bon Jovi’s ‘Wanted’ and now to make way for full blooded versions of AC/DC, Deep Purple and Metallica. Simply put – the pop layer has gradually been melted away by the molten rock beneath it’s surface.

I hasten to add that’s not a criticism. I like it that way. I’m wondering however if the same can be said of the band’s hard core fans, many of whom have been following the ‘Skies’ since they were covering The Beatles and Elvis in the early 1970’s. Rope Schmitz recalls on the bands website that fellow founder FD Faber would only sing Beatles songs in the original key – which itself was higher than most wanted to go. Faber now though is watching from the audience and I wonder what he and other former band members like Bea Tradt, also watching from the crowd, make of ‘their’ band 2010 style?
The trumpets and saxes are still there. But with numbers like ‘Gimme some Loving’ and ‘Son of a preacher man’ off of the set list there is less for them to do these days. I’d love to hear them let loose on a BB King classic – ‘Caldonia’ or ‘let the good times roll’ maybe?

Saturday’s show started with a solo acoustic spot by excellent Skies guitarist Martin Behr in which he showed his considerable guitar talents are not just dependent on electricity and footpedals.  A pleasant surprise during this was the arrival onstage of a new (to me anyway) Skies singer, Babsi Nitsche. With a Lulu like energy she especially shone with her cover of Amy Macdonald’s ‘This is the Life’ as she upped the tempo with Behr in hot acoustic pursuit to the songs climax. The only thing missing from the original was the Scots accent.

When Sunny Skies in full took the stage it was good to see a familiar ‘old’ face joining the new one. Alex Krienke was back after a long absence through illness. I’d have expected him to look fresh to begin and gradually tire as the show progressed. The reverse seemed true as he seemed to recharge like an NI-MH battery with each song. Though I’m not too sure about ‘Angels’ I do know I could hear his version of Freddie’s ‘Too much love can kill you’ at least three times and still want more. A goosebump song if ever there was one.

I’ve spoken of the large hard rock content of the show already but no one would complain about ‘Whole lotta Rosie’ or ‘Highway to Hell’ on this Particular evening. The recent death of one of Cologne’s most popular alternative Rock figures, Xaver Drexler, was even covered in ‘General Anzeiger’ with it’s motorcycle led courtege. Drexler’s appearances with Sunny Skies only last year as temporary replacement for Krienke must have been pretty spectacular. His fellow alternative rocker Ralf Lorenzen-Klein took the stage and really put the H in Heavy Metal with storming AC/DC covers.

There are some morals in this little review: Never judge a book by it’s cover for one – Sunny Skies are not an invitation to revisit the Beatles songbook; they can and do kick serious a*s when it’s required. If you can get to a live show by someone who’s music you might like do it – Michael Jackson isn’t the only one gone from the spotlights before his time. And one for me only – don’t tell Rope Schmitz you’re not doing a review of the show!

For details of a memorial concert to Xaver Drexler on 14 May at the Bruckenforum click HERE

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