The Scorpions perform at a concert

Shillong, Dec. 7: Five tonnes of equipment, thousands of watts of sound, a veritable army of delirious rock fans and Scorpions on stage to provide the sting.

Shillong may have witnessed several international music acts in the past few years — Firehouse, Petra, Michael Learns to Rock, former Iron Maiden vocalist Paul Di’Anno and, more recently, Eric Martin of Mr Big — but none bigger than what is in store for metal maniacs on Wednesday.

People are expected to arrive from as far as Delhi, Mumbai, Calcutta and Bangalore for the once-in-a-lifetime experience of seeing Scorpions perform live at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium as part of the band’s Humanity World Tour.

So big is the event that The Great Society, one of the pioneering “original” bands of the region that enjoyed cult status in the late 70s and 80s, has regrouped to be the main opening act. Formed in 1978, the line-up includes the iconic Lou Majaw (vocals and guitar), Arjun Sen (guitar), Sam Shullai (drums) and Ferdy Dkhar (bass).

Matthias Jabs, the guitarist of Scorpions, said during a teleconference last night that the German band was looking forward to performing in Shillong. “Next Monday we will start our journey to Shillong. We are very keen to perform in Shillong as we have never performed there but have heard from others that rock music has a huge fan base in those parts.”

The lighting system and trusses are being hired from Delhi and the power requirement is estimated to be more than 1,000 kilowatt. That is three times more than what Shillong had to arrange for the international concerts held in previous years.

Five giant screens are being installed at the venue with two 10,000-luminance screens — the only two available in the country — on either side of the stage.

The first lot of Platinum and Gold-class tickets were sold out within two days of bookings opening on December 1. Rooms in hotels of all categories are fully booked from Monday.

The event management company organising the concert said online booking trends had surpassed expectations. “We have been receiving queries from music lovers from across the country and expect to see a lot of people from Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore,” Larsing M, the head of Centre Point Entertainment Network, said.

Scorpions will perform in Bangalore on December 14 and Mumbai on December 16, but it seems many would prefer to see the metal icons do their thing in the rock music capital of the east.

“They reckon the vibes and the atmosphere at the Shillong concert will be different from the concerts in the metros,” one of the organisers said.

Apart from Matthias Jabs, Scorpions comprises Klaus Meine (vocals), Rudolf Schenker (guitar), James Kottak (drums) and Pawel Maciwoda (bass). The band’s evergreen anthems include Always somewhere, Rock you like a Hurricane and Winds of change.