During a recent nationally televised benefit show to aid victims of Hurricane Katrina, German rock band The Scorpions was widely panned for what many considered to be an offensive performance.
The two hour show, Shelter From The Storm was hosted by such mega-celebrities as Julia Roberts and Jack Nicholson and featured performances from well known musical acts like Kanye West, Garth Brooks, and Mariah Carey.
The evening was winding down when the Scorpions Just showed up and asked if they could play, according to the shows producer Joel Gallen. I had heard of them, and we had about four minutes to kill because Moby dropped out, so I said go for it, revealed Gallen. I had no idea they intended to sabotage the production like that.
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Scorpions lead singer Klaus Meine claims his band meant no harm and that the whole ordeal is merely a misunderstanding.
We intended no disrespect, said Meine, All we wanted to do was help. We were just trying to give the crowd what we thought they wanted. In retrospect, yeah, maybe the song selection was a little insensitive, but lets face it... our band doesnt have what you would call an extensive repertoire. I mean, we have some other tunes that we think are pretty solid like, Hit Between the Eyes... and of course theres our ballad Loving You Sunday Morning.
Drummer James Kottack then piped in: Dont forget Big City Lights. Sure, Big City Lights, agreed Meine, thats a great one. But when it all comes down to it, weve really only got the one go to song and if we dont play it, then most of the time people are like, Who the fuck is this? Is this Ratt? Weve actually heard that. People have thought we were Ratt.
Shelter From The Storm will rerun twice this week on selected stations, with the Scorpions performance edited out. In its place will be a heartfelt sympathetic message of hope to Katrina victims from movie star Charlize Theron, who will clearly be reading off of a teleprompter.
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