Let’s be honest. The prospect of listening to an album of cover versions by Udo Dirkschneider, pugnacious former frontman with German rockers Accept, is about as mouth-watering as being force-fed a bucket of foul-smelling sauerkraut. But against the odds the soon-to-be 70-year-old has pulled it off with My Way.
His song choices – beginning with a fabulous version of Alex Harvey’s Faith Healer – are spot-on, his enthusiasm is tangible, and he still sings like a mutant bullfrog with its gills full of iron filings.
There are some odd ones, too. On an unhinged Nutbush City Limits he outs himself as a Tina Turner fan, and surprisingly reveals that the song “was one of the mainstays of our Accept rehearsal repertoire for years”.
And then there’s My Way – yes, that My Way – which will have Ol’ Blue Eyes spinning in his grave like an overheated Hadron Collider.
