Live: Udo Dirkschneider in Pittsburgh

Since Accept got a new vocalist that’s not half bad, I was very excited to hear that original Accept singer Udo Dirkschneider was going to be playing with his solo band at the Rex Theater in Pittsburgh. What better way is there to hear Accept classics plus all his solo material?

Joining Udo on stage were Fitty Wienhold on bass, Andrey Smirnov on guitar, Bill Hudson guitar and his son Sven Dirkschneider on drums. All of them were at the top of their game and sounded flawless. They all took the time to have a little bit of a solo during the performance, which sounded fantastic.

The show started with Udo singing off stage and the crowd absolutely erupted into total pandemonium as he slow walked on stage. Although Udo is kind of short when he took the stage he looked and sounded like a giant. The band found their groove early on and never sounded better and Udo gave an absolutely pitch perfect performance.

They rocked hard through Accept classics such as “Metal Heart,” “Midnight Mover,” “Russian Roulette,” “London Leather Boys” and “Living For Tonight” alongside of his solo material such as “They Want War” and “Animal House”. It was a presented perfectly and with a sense of passion in the delivery.

As for Udo himself, he didn’t do much talking preferring to let the music do the talking. So the music just kept on coming. Nearly two hours worth of music in all. Udo did come alive during the bands encores speaking to the crowd asking “Do you want some more.”

He had two encores containing three songs with the last being the almighty “Balls to the Wall”. It was long and drawn out getting the crowd to sing along loud and proud. All that was left was to take a bow and thank everyone for coming out and having one hell of a time.

-Eric Hunker

Udo Dirkschneider