SCORPIONS played the first show of their "Sin City Nights" Las Vegas residency Saturday night (March 26) at Zappos Theater at Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino. The band's 18-song setlist included four tracks from their recently released "Rock Believer" album: Gas In The Tank", "Seventh Sun", Peacemaker" and "When You Know (Where You Come From)".
Vocalist Klaus Meine dedicated the anti-war anthem "Wind Of Change" to "the brave people in the Ukraine," saying: "This song is calling for peace, and tonight, I think, we shall sing it even louder."
The full setlist was as follows:
01. Gas In The Tank (live premiere)
02. Make It Real
03. The Zoo
04. Coast To Coast
05. Seventh Sun (live premiere)
06. Peacemaker (live premiere)
07. Bad Boys Running Wild
08. Delicate Dance
09. When You Know (Where You Come From) (live premiere, acoustic version)
10. Send Me An Angel (acoustic version)
11. Wind Of Change
12. Tease Me Please Me
13. Rock Believer
14. Big City Nights
15. Drum Solo
16. Blackout
17. No One Like You
18. Rock You Like A Hurricane
Fan-filmed video is available below.
Earlier in the month, Meine told ABC Audio that fans could expect to see "a whole new production" during the Vegas residency, including a "new stage set" and an LED screen that will display "some cool scenes."
SCORPIONS previously played a Las Vegas mini-residency in May 2016, consisting of five shows at The Joint at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino.
In a 2017 interview, Meine said: "You can understand why so many artists, they love playing Vegas because fans come from all over the world to see their favorite artists, and you have your place for band and crew, and you don't have to move every other day of the year. We like to move around, but all of us, we really enjoyed that residency. It was cool and they treated us really like Elvis. We had the biggest billboard on the Strip."
SCORPIONS' remaining Las Vegas shows are scheduled for March 30 and April 1, 3, 7, 9, 12, 14 and 16. Afterwards they will cross the Atlantic to Europe where they will play six concerts in France and six shows in Germany supported by Wolfgang Van Halen's new band MAMMOTH WVH.
"Rock Believer" was released on February 25. The album was recorded primarily at Peppermint Park Studios in Hannover, Germany and was mixed at the legendary Hansa Studios in Berlin, Germany with engineer Michael Ilbert, who has earned multiple Grammy nominations for his mix work with producer Max Martin on albums by Taylor Swift and Katy Perry.
SCORPIONS originally intended to record the new album in Los Angeles with producer Greg Fidelman, whose previous credits include SLIPKNOT and METALLICA. However, because of the pandemic, some of the initial work was done with Greg remotely, after which SCORPIONS opted to helm the recordings themselves with the help of their engineer Hans-Martin Buff.
