Friday, April 6: Tig’s Rock Birthdays

Happy Birthday today (April 6) to German heavy metal legend Udo Dirkschneider. The former Accept frontman is 66. Also celebrating today is drummer Roy Mayorga of Stone Sour (48) and singer/guitarist Warren Haynes (Gov't Mule, Allman Brothers) is 58.

Udo Dirkschneider formerd Accept out of Germany with guitarist Wolf Hoffmann and bassist Peter Baltes. The band was important to the development of speed and thrash metal in the early to mid 1980’s. Accept achieved commercial success in 1983 with the album Balls to The Wall and the title cut became a well known hit. The album remains Accept’s only gold album in the U.S. Dirkschneider currently fronts the band U.D.O. and they put out their last studio album called Decadent in 2015. A live album featuring Accept classics called Live- Back to the Roots was released in 2016. I got to see Udo's band perform several times over the years including at Upstate Concert Hall last year which we with a full review for the Metal Box.

Cheers to Udo on his birthday today!