A Rockin' Tribute

‘FiFi’ the high-flying B-29 Superfortress always wows the crowd

- Donald Lugers

I awake with a song in my head: “Bomber” by Motörhead. This straight-ahead, no-nonsense rock song honours a special World War II aircraft, the Boeing B-29 Superfortress—a high-altitude bomber that played a huge role in the Second World War and later saw action during the Korean War. The song also forms a loose metaphor for the mind-blowing sonic assault Motörhead always brought to its live concerts. Ian Fraser “Lemmy” Kilmister, the band’s lead singer, main songwriter and bass player, was a WWII history bu… and that’s why the band had a replica of a B-29 created for their “Bomber” album tour back in the ’80s. It hung directly over the stage and was controlled by cables and pulleys to appear to actually fly, at times only inches above the heads of the three band members. Back in the day, audiences were blown away by the hard-driving tune right from the opening lyrics:

“Oh, aah

Ain’t no hope in hell

Nothing is gonna bring us down

The way we fly

Five miles o the ground

Because we shoot to kill

And you know we always will

It’s a bomber, it’s a bomber”