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Rating: Most blessed Jesus. Can someone explain to me the difference between the endings of the verb "to be" in the perfect and pluperfect tense in Greek? I can't make heads or tails of it anymore. Damn all my professors, I'm drowning in translations and little translations as I am, I can't take it anymore! This time, struggling with a little fable by Aesop, I rebelled against the incredible masochism of the lecturers, kindly telling school to go to hell and clinging to the computer.
After six consecutive games of Pinball (and all not surpassing six million), I kind of wore out my genitals (or, in raw words, got fed up) and decided to listen to some music on my Creative. And suddenly, the illumination! Gotthard pops up! Like Paul on the road to Damascus, I understand what I must do. Share with my DeReview friends the magnificence of this big group.
The single I have chosen is the one I most enjoy from Gotthard's discography (even though it was never released as an official single), it's entitled "Mighty Quinn" and is a true anthem to Pink Floyd. Recently, if I'm not mistaken, an Australian band named Wolfmother popped up, squeezing guitars a bit to create a very glamorous, '70s hard rock sound, and so on. But have you ever heard Gotthard? No, I ask, have you ever heard them? No???? Start doing it! So cool and so hard rock like them, there is no one! Not long ago, Pibroch reviewed (for the first time) a Gotthard album, "Lipservice" to be precise, and I remember like it was yesterday a comment left by a user, who said in a nutshell that if it were a band of the caliber of Pink Floyd or the like that composed our Swiss friends' songs, it would have had an even more impressive success than the current one. Instead, it was Gotthard that composed them, so no worldwide success, no deserved fame, nothing at all. It's an at least unfair treatment. And this "Mighty Quinn" would have become the anthem of a generation if it had come from the pen of Freddy Mercury instead of Leo Leoni. And it's a pity that few know it: and it's also a pity that I don't know how to put up a sample. However, I am here to describe it, and I will try to do it in the best possible way.
The composition begins with a guitar riff more in '80s style than this can't be. And the effect, in 2000, is remarkable. Subsequently, that great artist named Steve Lee starts the verse, and even here the Eighties atmosphere remains unaltered: you can already imagine him at the microphone, long hair, voice that in its robustness sometimes spills over into a joyful falsetto. The chorus is a masterpiece. All the band members, hence Lee, Leoni, Marc Lynn (bass), and Hena Habegger (drums) sing in a sort of falsetto over a background that seems to have come out of a Floydian guitar. Come on, all together: "Come on without, come on within/ You'll not see nothin' like the mighty quinn". Once again the following verse is sung ideally by Lee, who this time aims for higher tones, succeeding with exceptional ease, and after the chorus, the solo begins. As blood-pumping as ever, with evolutions still in the Eighties realm, this solo break is all to enjoy, to the fullest, as in the best Floyd times, and I must say it gave me goosebumps.
Superb indeed the performance of Leoni, who after using up the twenty-twenty-five seconds at his disposal, leaves the five strings and starts singing along with the whole band, for the umpteenth time, the chorus. But this time it's different. No guitar in the background, only the rhythm of the drums and the voices of the Swiss. You know those old scenes where Mercury claps hands with the audience to the rhythm of the music? Well, this time too Gotthard takes inspiration from the musical scene of those years. The final part is simply applause-worthy: after letting out a shout in Justin Hawkins' style, Lee calms down while Leoni and Lynn do the "dirty work" by pulling out another great solo from their necks, then ending with an execution of two or three separated high notes in a breathtaking performance.
Guys, so, what are you waiting for to get to know this group? If I were you, I wouldn't just approach it, but I would dive right in, such is the sound quality of those said Swiss.
P.S. I managed to translate Aesop's fable! It was the one about the fox that tricks the cheese piece from the crow... but what an effort!
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