THIS WEEK I’M LISTENING TO...MOTÖRHEAD Live At Montreux Jazz Festival 2007 (BMG)

“So this is the Montreux Jazz Festival... Here’s a bit of jazz for you... We are Motörhead, and we play rock and roll...”

Amongst the seeming plethora of live shows coming from the Motörhead camp, this one is a bit of a treat. The tour in support of August 2006’s ‘Kiss Of Death’ album kicked off in the October and ran to December, then picked up the following year and continued pretty much well into 2008 – after which the band pretty much went back out on the ‘Motörizer’ tour. Back in the middle of 2007 though Lemmy, Phil Campbell and Mikkey Dee had played a number of summer festivals, including a stop off in Switzerland where they delivered this sprightly set at the legendary Montreux Jazz Festival on 7 July.

The tracklist through the tour didn’t change that much – hey, why alter a winning formula? – but it was interesting in that the band introduced a cover of ‘Rosalie’ in tribute to Phil Lynott, and also brought ‘Snaggletooth’ – one of the six new tracks recorded by the new-look four-piece MotörMachine at the time of the ‘No Remorse’ compilation – into the fold. By summer 2007 it had become a rather good (if short-lived) set opener, while ‘Be My Baby’, ‘One Night Stand’ and ‘Sword Of Glory’ represented the band’s current album.

Otherwise, you know the score. After some of the more recent material the second half of the night’s proceedings features the frenetic ‘Sacrifice’ as a vehicle for Dee’s solo (Lemmy always introduced him as “the best drummer in the world,” and he wasn’t wrong on that score), after which ‘Just ’Cos You Got The Power’ takes the pace down and allows Campbell to showcase his own talents. Then the triple-whammy of ‘Going To Brazil’, ‘Killed By Death’ and ‘Iron Fist’ wrap things up, and although the encores open rather tentatively with the novelty ‘Whorehouse Blues’ it’s ‘Ace Of Spades’ and ‘Overkill’ that tear the roof off. The recording does a stonkingly good job of encapsulating the power and the beauty of Motörhead in full flight, and captures possibly the most exciting night in Montreux since the Casino burned down in 1971...

Video clips:
‘I Got Mine’ - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEilaJkXXUI

‘Rosalie’ - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q48Vhj_9Gso

Dedicated to the memory of Alan Burridge (7 May 1951 – 13 March 2023) – a true Motörheadbanger, through and through