Rocked to the Ground: Graham Bonnet’s ‘Assault Attack’ on tour
The legendary ex-Rainbow singer brings Michael Schenker’s 1982 album to Southampton, along with fan favourites and deep cuts.
Photo: Jacob Wingate-Bishop
In 1982, ex-UFO, ex-Scorpions guitarist Michael Schenker put out a record under the Michael Schenker Group name, Assault Attack. A collection of eight hard rock and heavy metal tracks, it marked the only full-length collaboration between the band and Graham Bonnet, the man behind Rainbow’s biggest hit.
Over forty years later, and Bonnet — who featured on Rainbow’s Down to Earth record before numerous fallouts with founder and guitarist Ritchie Blackmore led him to pursue a solo career — is on the road, celebrating Assault Attack in its (almost) entirety. Bonnet and his band, along with Scottish leather-clad rock newbies Victory or Die, ended the ten-show tour in Southampton.
Victory or Die had the unenviable job of warming up a room of sixty-somethings — a demographic who, notoriously, save their nods of approval for the band they came to see. The four-piece won over the audience quickly, however, with their Def-Leppard-meets-Lemmy-for-a-bit-of-how’s-your-father anthems, and having an infectiously great time doing it.
Crypt, their latest single — while lyrically ridiculous (“I wanna live in a crypt / Away from the hypocrites”) — summed up the band well: shout-along choruses, sludgy riffs and generally very, very loud. Hang the DJ and The Death Squad were particularly well-crafted hard rock anthems, while groovy House of Love solidified the group as one of the few genuinely heavy metal bands worthy of the name today.
Assault Attack, though entering the charts in the UK, US and Japan and often regarded as one of MSG’s best, is not widely known outside of diehard ‘80s rock circles and AOR radio waves. Nevertheless, it was the only record to feature Bonnet on vocals, and the tour gave him a chance to dig both sides out of the vault. Dancer, the album’s only single, and the title track are no Since You Been Gone, but they’re still thoroughly decent rock tunes. Searching For a Reason has one hell of a catchy riff, and Samurai (initially titled Summer Nights, according to Bonnet) is an epic rocker, if lyrically preposterous (“Samurai, do you live to die?”).
Some classics don’t stand the test of time onstage, true. Some tracks are better left in the studio, with the countless tracks, overdubs and wall-of-sound production. Rainbow’s Since You Been Gone, though, was every inch the commercial rock stadium pleaser it should have been. There was a feeling that night that we were all — collectively — witnessing a genuine rock legend play one of the best rock tracks of all time, live, before our eyes. I don’t mind admitting it was sort of a dream come true.
All Night Long, a catchy piece of misogynist-rock (“Don’t know about your brains / But you look alright”) from the same album — and a hit in its own right — fired on just as many cylinders, and lesser known cuts like Into the Night (Graham Bonnet Band’s The Book) and Night Games (off Bonnet’s 1981 Line-Up) were greeted with as much head-banging as the big, Blackmore favourites.
For a man who’s laid down vocals on a dozen albums from various different bands throughout the ‘70s and ‘80s, and who has his own lengthy solo career, the setlist was surprisingly comprehensive. The guitarist said after the set that on their first tour after the pandemic, the setlist was ‘almost there’ (“we were all trying to remember how to do this!”). Now? “It’s perfect. It’s there”.
He’s right. Michael Schenker’s Assault Attack — while not played in full — saw six out of eight tracks dusted off and brought to life. There were teases of Alcatrazz, solo cuts, and a handful of Rainbow-era gems. It was a celebration of some all-time legendary guitarists, yes. But, throughout it all, booming chorus after chorus was Graham Bonnet, and all these years later, he’s still going strong. He had nothing but good things to say about ex-bandmates, but, for that night, we were all united in our love for this one man’s music, and he did the songs proud. Like he sang on Assault Attack, we’re all searching for a reason. Well, that night, we found it.