Back when I was a lad, the blond German axeman Michael Schenker was one of my heroes. His fantastic playing on albums like UFO’s “Strangers in the Night” and MSG’s “Live at the Budokan” made him one of the greats. I only got to see him live once, as the headline act of the 1982 Reading Festival, but that was a pretty amazing show.
Sadly his career has suffered an awful lot of ups and downs. When on form, he can still show flashes of brilliance. But all too often his personal demons and well-documented drink problems get the better of him.
Now he appears to have hit rock bottom. This short clip from Rock and Blues Festival shows him totally out of it, a parody of his former self.
This was apparently posted to the official Scorpions forum by the mother of Michael’s children. I don’t have a direct link, but saw the post on another forum.
Michael is under a battle, wish more fans would pray . He gets like that when he can not cope. things on that tour are messed up and no proper management. Very sad.
More need to wish well and think positive GOD has a plan for Michael and will deliver him.
He will be back!, His gifts given to him are too great for GOD to let him go to waste. Michael’s testimony will be beyond what you and I will be able to give as we have not suffered in the ways Michael is suffering.
I am learning things are not what they seem to be.
Trust in GOD we Must.
0x
Mother of Essenz & Chinua Schenker .
Bad news for The Reasoning. They were booked as support tonight on their home turf in Cardiff, a major gig for them. But it was not to be. As posted by Matt Cohen on The Reasoning’s Forum, the tour came to a sorry end two nights before.
Hi everyone. Well…it seems like this really is the week for it!. We have just been informed that whilst playing at Stourbridge last night, Michael Schenker managed to fall off the stage and injure himself. As a result, he has apparently been flown back to Germany – and the rest of the tour has been cancelled. Obviously we have tried to retrieve this gig with the help of the promoter, but unfortunately with such little time to get things into place, we are sorry to say that the gig at The Point in Cardiff has now been pulled.
Let’s hope and pray that Michael gets the help he needs, and manages to bounce back yet again. His performance at the Rock and Blues festival has been compared with that of Tommy Bolin at Liverpool in 1976. Within a year of that, Bolin was dead. We don’t want that to happen to Schenker.
