Rodgau Monotones Live At Rockpalast 1984 (2-CD & 1-DVD)

(Rockpalast/WDR/MIG) 33 tracks

There were times when music didn't have to be serious, times when you could find songs in the charts as a matter of course that just wanted to be fun. Sometimes they were like a flat joke and sometimes biting satire, and everywhere there were amusing stories that were not only about relationship dramas or new love, but about all the little adventures that happened around the corner, that mirrored all our lives without pathos but with charm, irony and often out of pure fun and frolic. And one of the bands that unleashed their very own humor on the world back then is the Rodgau Monotones.

For 40 years now, the Hessians have been making their "quality noise" (as they describe it themselves), playing classic rock that doesn't take itself seriously, but the craft all the more so. Founded in 1977, their love of music was already evident in the fact that they started out as a cover band out of pure enthusiasm. But soon they started to take their own material to the stages as well and when their first record "Wollt ihr Musik, oder was?!" was released in 1982, they were unstoppable. In early 1984, "Volle Lotte", their most successful album, was released, they were talked about and then on the list of the Rockpalast. The invitation alone was a recognition and so the band cleared everything on 13.11.1984 in the Grugahalle Essen.

And already the virtuoso guitar solo of Raimund "Ray" Salg in the very first song proves that they fully deserved this invitation. "You can look forward to solos - it'll knock your socks off!', as saxophonist (and later Badesalz celebrity) Henni Nachtsheim - somewhat belatedly - then announced to the fans in the Zeche Bochum.