Welcome to my new Pencil Storm five-part Mini-Series - Five Live Albums That Signified the End of an Era. Every couple/few/several weeks (or months, who knows?) I’ll explore a classic live album from a band that was at the peak of their career. Episode One is devoted to the great World Wide Live by Germany’s fantastic Scorpions. 

Scorpions were touring off Love at First Sting in 1984-1985, the fourth and final album of what many consider their peak. It’s three predecessors – Lovedrive (1979), Animal Magnetism (1980) and Blackout (1982) along with LAFS combined to make a hell of a four album run, and the live album consisted entirely of songs from these records, even though they did play a couple older songs on that tour.

The album was originally going to be called Live at First Sting, a detail that still somehow occupies space in my brain from hours spent pouring over every word in Circus Magazine back then, and I still think that would have been cool. There was an abbreviated companion VHS video of the concert that is interesting as the footage is often obviously from a different performance than the music, often random clips of the band jumping around, making funny rock faces and winking at girls, and that it seems that singer Klaus Meine filmed several closeups on his own on a sound stage after the fact.  

The tour came through Charlevoix, Michigan at a venue called Castle Farms, and I had an older buddy who offered to take me, but my parents were having none of it. Bon Jovi, touring off their first album, were support for that show and at least a good chunk of the tour, and I was also way into that record, and bummed to miss it. Scorpions remain one of the few bands that are still together who I’ve always wanted to see but never have. I hope to remedy that next year. 

After World Wide Live The Scorps got even bigger with their mega-hit “Winds of Change” that chronicled and celebrated the fall of the Iron Curtain, but my interest quickly waned, as did the consistency of their albums, the popularity of ‘80s metal, and the crowds, money and excitement that came with it. A couple lesser hits and an unnecessary and sub-par cover of The Who’s “I Can’t Explain” shut the door on any passing interest I had. The era of Scorpions represented on World Wide Live still holds up though, and along with some of the other live albums I plan to chronicle in this series, is a great document of it.

Jeremy Porter lives near Detroit and fronts the rock and roll band Jeremy Porter And The Tucos. Follow them on Facebook to read his road blog about their adventures on the dive-bar circuit.
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