Written by:	Ivor
Published:	October 06, 2012
Event:	Fu Manchu: European Tour 2012
Location:	Rock Café, Tallinn, Estonia
Galleries:	Fu Manchu - Rock Café, Tallinn, Estonia, 30.09.2012 by Ivor (37)

Welcome to the world of awesome riffs, power chords, and insane drive, the world of power rock trios and quartets. The world where roads are straight, where brakes are for losers who can't take corners flat out, where in fact the very corners themselves are straight to spare you the trouble. The world where, if people had any sense, Sunday would be called Stonerday, and not just this particular Sunday on this particular occasion in Tallinn.





Damn right, it was about time Fu Manchu was brought back to Tallinn. 5 years ago it was destroyah who dragged me to their show claiming it'd be a blast. Knowing nothing about the music, I went along... and my world was rocked back then. I even made a small promise I'd grab some Fu Manchu albums to listen to afterwards. Fast forward 5 years, I shamefully still know nothing about the music, not even about the album the tour is dedicated to - the reissue of The Action is Go. However, I was going to the gig equipped with the mighty knowledge that an awesome time was had all around at the previous gig. I knew for certain that it's going to be awesome. Question was, how awesome?

Although I was planning on arriving at the venue on time for the opener The Shrine, it eventually turned out I was about an hour early. And at first it looked kind of grim. The hall was empty save for a handful of people chilling at the tables along the walls. Remembering the previous occasion, it seemed that booking Rock Café for this gig was a mighty stretch. There was no way this hall would be full, let alone on Sunday.





However, when The Shrine hit the stage, there was a very comfortable amount of people around. It wasn't much but there was enough. You could still easily walk in front of the stage; in fact, if you helped a couple of your fellow fans to the sharp taste of your elbows, you could take a really close look at the guitarist's shoes. That is, if the guy held still for a moment. The energy, the bark and the bite of the guitar driven scorching rock makes it hard to be still, though admittedly a couple enthusiastic chaps aside, the front was relatively peaceful, featuring mostly the vigorous nods and taps of appreciation. The band, however, had their shit together, so to speak. They rocked, and hard.





Fu Manchu were every bit as awesome as I remembered. Time melts it all together, and on certain occasions it blends memories over the years into a vivid image of something cool yet indescribable. In a nutshell, the show of 5 years ago boils down to the great gig feeling and the awesome looking (and sounding!) Scott Hill's see-through guitar. When Fu Manchu hit off with a groove, opening with a track from the The Action is Go album, I got the that-was-it feeling. The vivid image became alive again, in more colours and with live sound. The trip was under way.

As the tour is dedicated to The Action is Go album, the band proceeded stepping through every one of the songs. Well, more like raced through the whole album song after song, if you know what I mean. Delivering great sounding riffs and passages one after another, groovy songs you could relate to and rock out to. "Burning Road," "Anodizer" and "Hogwash" sounded just amazing. Not to mention the encore with "King of the Road."





Set list (The Action is Go)
1. Evil Eye
2. Urethane
3. The Action is Go
4. Burning Road
5. Guardrail
6. Anodizer
7. Trackside Hoax
8. Unknown World
9. Laserbl'ast!
10. Hogwash
11. Grendel Snowman
12. Strolling Astronomer
13. Saturn III
14. Nothing Done
Encore
15. Mongoose (Eatin' Dust)
16. King of the Road (King of the Road)





With The Shrine and Fu Manchu time passed obeying fundamental laws of great stoner rock - your sense of time is inversely proportional to the goodness of the music. The better the music, the less time you appear to have been listening to it. This time it went woosh! One moment it's the first notes of The Shrine, the next it's already Fu Manchu packing up. In between - a rocking blast.

In the end, let me address Mr. No-show destroyah personally. How the hell could you skip it? What on earth were you thinking you daft old fool, you?