Bonfire are a band, to me, famous for hard / melodic rock. They’ve been going for almost as long as I’ve been alive (longer if you include the band they originated as) and are pretty much part of the furniture in the House of Rock. Over that time, they’ve influenced countless other acts, but it’s interesting to discover many of the bands and songs that they like. And hence we have Legends, thirty-two covers of larger and lesser known tracks by a ton of bands you’ll know.
Hans Ziller, the only founding member of the band remaining, had a plan to do a big concert tour with a wealth of guest appearances. Bonfire would do the music, the original vocalists would appear and ply their trade. Organising something like this is a nightmare and Legends is the next best thing. Originally an exercise in recording the songs so that the band could become familiar with the material, plans changed and they performed the songs entirely as Bonfire – with Alex Stahl on vocals, Hans Ziller and Frank Pané on guitars, Ronnie Parkes on bass, Tim Breideband on drums and the addition of Paul Morris on keyboards.
So we know the musicianship is going to be top notch, but how much fun can a covers album be? Well… pretty good fun, actually. Bonfire stamp their mark on each song, and this is apparent from the off with a very individual version of Toto’s signature “Africa”. There’s no mistaking this for a band trying to copy the original. As an opener it’s brilliant. Brash, big and entirely unlike its source material, the first 15 second or so sound more like The Darkness’s “Love Is Only A Feeling” than a piece of 80’s melodic balladry.
And the choice of songs is superb. If you’d chucked the originals on here, you’d have a great compilation album with artists ranging from Grave Digger and Queensryche to UFO and Survivor. It really is a hell of a collection.
I’ve had a ton of fun listening to this album and it’s made its way onto the in-car entertainment system (a.k.a. my phone) which is a rare honour. Quality musicianship and not a duff track to be heard. It’s nice for a band to let loose, try something new and have it work so well.
Legends is out on October 19th
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I decided to buy the album…. but I have to say, very few bands seem to be able to do Toto justice in covers… and I would not say Bonfire got it right either. For one, the drums… the drums are never as good as they should be and immediately stand out as a step down from the originals. Again, that is not Bonfire-specific… no one seems to get that right. Anyway, as an MP3 album, this full set is quite a good amount of music for about $12. All the songs are done good… not many are better than… Read more »
All fair points, JW. I don’t think anyone will do “Africa” as well as Toto but what Bonfire do is spin it there way and it works very well. The only covers I’m not a huge fan of are ones which are essentially the same as the original, and none of the tracks on this (huge) album fall into this category.
Covers being better than the original are about as numerous as films which are superseded by their sequels. It happens, but not often!