Last weekend was the first instalment of the world famous Coachella festival, in which heavy rock vets Motörhead performed the penultimate set on the Mojave stage to a sea of 75,000 adoring fans, wait, hold up, maybe drop that figure to 74,999.
That’s right, there was in fact one very disgruntled music journalist named Dirk Benninghoff who was bitterly unimpressed with the band’s performance and had no issue publishing an appalling review of their hour-long set on website, Metal Hammer – in German no less (BYO translator).
The critic kept the crossfire directly on lead vocalist Lemmy Kilmister, jibing that he “looked like an old coyote” as well as shooting down the special guest appearance of Slash as a clever move to take attention off the withering frontman.
Believe it or not, this scowling piece of press did not get past Motörhead, who – for lack of a better term – are pretty pissed off, believing they’ve been targeted for not providing Benninghoff with an interview “due to time constraints.”
Fed-up, the band have directly hit back at the negative nancy on their official Facebook page and have called upon fans to do the same. Earlier today, the seasoned three-piece posted an image of a smiling Benninghoff, whom as the band state “TRASHED us!!”, highlighting the main pieces of negative commentary the German writer published of the band.
Here are some of the things that Dirk had to say: “Lemmy looked like an OLD COYOTE.” Lemmy is 68 years old, should he look like Justin Beiber??????? Then Dirk seemed to have an issue that Lemmy went off the stage during Phil’s guitar solo. Hey Dirk! Should Lemmy stay on the stage and do a Tap Dance or Bake Cookies?????? It’s Phil’s FUCKING solo!!! Then Dirk bags on Lemmy for going off the stage during Mikkey’s drum solo, AGAIN, doesn’t every musician usually go off stage to put the spotlight on the person doing the solo?
Not willing to remove his own spotlight on the band’s 68-year old vocalist, Benninghoff’s original attacks questioned:
“How does Lemmy do it? His voice is thin, his legs are shaky , he is struggling. It sound blasphemic but there is a cheerless person on stage without physical energy and no persuasive power. This goes on until the special guest, Slash arrives. Slash is rather ******”
In their fiery Facebook post, Motörhead declared their notorious frontman is in definite fighting physical health:
“First of all, we aren’t sure what kind of drugs that you were taking at Coachella Dirk, but Lemmy’s legs NEVER shook and are solid as a ROCK!”
Speaking diplomatically, Motörhead wrote:
“Say what you want about us, but when you call our friend names, we take offense!! Again if we had an off night, if we sucked, we can accept a bad review, but for you to trash us, trash our friend Slash and insult the millions of Motörhead fans around the world because you were PISSED OFF at us because we couldn’t do an interview with you is just WRONG!!!!”
Like the final words before a war, the band publicly conclude their public attack with a call-to-arms to their fans. “If you saw our shows at Coachella and in Los Angeles this past weekend, we welcome you to let Dirk Benninghoff know how you feel,” even providing the writer’s personal Twitter handle to do so.
Hell hath no fury like a heavy rock band scorned.
Motörhead’s bitter review rebuttal is the latest in a few musicians spitting the dummy over reviewers’ opinions lately, including The Cure’s Robert Smith writing a fiery ALL CAPS takedown of a writer bored by their epic three-hour charity benefit concerts. But more bizarrely, Mobb Deep attacking a Pitchfork scribe after they gave the rap duo a perfect (and very rare) 10/10 score.
