Scorpions bring “Crazy World” tour to Spokane Arena

Two years after celebrating its 50th anniversary, legendary Germany-born heavy metal band Scorpions – drummer Mikkey Dee, guitarist Matthias Jabs, bassist Pawel Maciwoda, vocalist/guitarist Klaus Meine and guitarist Rudolf Schenker – are crisscrossing the country on its “Crazy World” tour.

This tour is a part two of sorts, as the band embarked on a “Crazy World” tour in 1991 in support of the album of the same name.

The band felt it was an appropriate title for this tour given the current state of the world.

“When our album ‘Crazy World’ was released back in ‘91, right at the end of the Cold War, we toured around a world that was pretty crazy back then, but there was so much hope in the air for a more peaceful future,” Meine said in a press release. “Now 26 years later, things are getting crazy every other day. After all these years, ‘Crazy World’ is still a good motto for our upcoming world tour.”

Here are a few things to know before Scorpions bring the “Crazy World” tour to the Spokane Arena on Friday with special guest Megadeth:

You can expect to hear it all

On the “Crazy World” tour, fans can expect to hear songs from Scorpions’ 50-plus-year discography. Hits like “Wind of Change,” “Still Loving You,” “Send Me An Angel” and “Rock Me Like a Hurricane” are a given, but set lists from recent shows also include fan favorites like “The Zoo” and “Big City Nights,” plus songs from its most recent album, “Return to Forever.”

As a nod to Dee’s time with the band, Scorpions has also been throwing in a cover of Motorhead’s “Overkill” recently.

“Return to Forever” showcases unreleased songs

For its latest album, the band went back into its archives and began to look for unreleased songs it could update with new musical parts or rewritten lyrics. The songs on the album, including unfinished demos from the “Blackout,” “Love at First Sting,” “Savage Amusement” and “Crazy World” album cycles, were written between the late seventies (“Crazy Ride”) and 2014 (“The Scratch”).

“We’re doing it the way we are recording albums today, but the basic ideas, the riffs, the feel, the way they were written and arranged. We try to keep as much from the old recordings as possible,” Jabs told billboard.com. “Thirty years later no one would come up with these ideas we came up with when we were younger, so we want to keep that spirit in there.”

Supporting hurricane relief

Scorpions have teamed up with the Hand in Hand Organization to provide a way for fans to donate to hurricane relief.

At each stop on the “Crazy World” tour, fans can text GIVE ROCK to 80077 to donate $25 to Hand in Hand, which supports charities like Feeding Texas, Feeding Florida, Habitat for Humanity and more.

Fans outside the U.S. interested in helping can visit www.handinhand2017.com.

Surgeons love “Rock You Like a Hurricane”

A recent article on the Fortune website detailed research from Spotify and Figure 1, a knowledge-sharing platform on health care, that found that rock music is the most popular genre for surgeons in the operating room.

Joining “Rock You Like a Hurricane” at the top of the list are Eric Clapton’s “Cocaine,” U2’s “Beautiful Day” and Janis Joplin’s “Piece of My Heart.”

No sign of

slowing down

In 2010, the band announced that the tour behind its 17th album, “Sting in the Tail,” would be its last. But the band reconsidered shortly thereafter and have been releasing music and touring steadily since.

Meine explained the change in heart to Provo, Utah’s Daily Herald by saying it was simply impossible for the band to stay away.

“I don’t want to say that we’re applause junkies, you know, but we’re so connected with what we’re doing and when you get this type of feedback from all over the place around the world, especially when you get this kind of reaction from the young generation – this is so motivating,” he said. “And it makes you feel really good to see that our music is crossing over to the young rock fans as well… I mean, when you see what I see when I get out on stage, you know, it’s like how can you not love this? How can you not enjoy it? It’s just a wonderful thing to be so very connected with the fans around the world.”