Manowar - The Day The Earth Shook: The Absolute Power DVD Review
Posted by Evocator Manes on 12.11.2006
The once in a lifetime event captured on film.
Manowar The Day The Earth Shook: The Absolute Power DVD
2006
Magic Circle
7.0
On July 23, 2005, Manowar headlined the Earthshaker Festival in Rieden, Germany. This show was the culmination of a rather unprecedented series of events by the band. Not only did they have their first-ever fan convention, for which some hardy followers trekked literally halfway around the globe, but they also had every player who was ever in the Manowar band on stage playing...at the same time.
This is a sight (Battle Hymns) that must be seen to be believed, but which would have been even better to experience. Still, one can see it on the face of Eric Adams and Karl Logan, who looked as if they were having the most fun and feel the brotherhood through the screen. If that is not enough, this two disc set boasts almost 7 hours of footage.
The first disc is the live show, the headlining concert of the Earthshaker Fest 2005. As usual, the sound is crisp, the band is tight, but this time, there's the extra bonus feature of a full orchestra and a large choir backing the band. There are a lot of cuts in the concert footage, but the actual concert itself is well-shot, though director Neil Johnson's habit of spinning the camera to dissolves, while amusing the first couple of times, gets annoying as the disc goes on. Of special note, aside from the band not playing several songs I wish they would have (getting into a fantasy Manowar set list would literally take me so much time, it would expire your patience on the order of several thousand times before I finished reps of the band can email me if they would like this, though) and a few that I could live without hearing for a while (reps can email me for this list also), there is a tribute by Joey DeMaio to dead racist composer Richard Wagner, who is then credited by DeMaio for inventing heavy metal, an accolade I'm not certain Wagner would have been especially gratified to receive. The orchestra then plays through the Prelude to Act III from Lohengrin and the crowd is stunned, not quite sure what to think. They applause readily enough, likely because they want the band to get going again and possibly in the hopes that the particular experiment they just sat through won't be repeated again.
Maybe I have seen too much Manowar (I have all the DVDs, all the albums and close to all, if not all of the EPs), but it is beyond me what the band's love of feedback is. Hearing noise in a circuit from instrument pickup to monitor cabinet is not music, not interesting and certainly not good and Manowar does this incessantly and for long periods of time. Moving on to other notable things, of the three Manowar guitarists, Karl Logan is far and away the cleanest, David Shankle the quietest and Ross The Boss the gutsiest. If there is a way for raw emotion to come across in a guitar solo, he has channeled it. Shankle's set was kind of weird. Instead of playing Ride The Dragon as they should have (they should have called me for the set list), they did The Glory Of Achilles, a section of a very long song from The Triumph Of Steel. It is an excellent song, but meant to be heard at once and having it broken up into parts makes it awkward when it ends. Shankle also seems to really like to play with his entire hand over the strings instead up coming up from underneath. It looks silly and like the endless noisy feedback, he just kept doing it.
All those petty annoyances and observations aside, when the crowning jewel, Battle Hymns, kicks in, it makes it all seem worth it. Eric Adams' joy is infectious and indeed, the band steps into the song and goes batshit. Seeing three drumsets playing that song in unison and precision is near mind-blowing and that was clearly the main event of the program. The fireworks at the end of the show, while impressive, do nothing compared to the majesty of that song, of that moment when they all kicked in. Truly magical and one of a kind.
My last comment to this disc is The Crown And The Ring song. They have a full orchestra and a full choir. Why is that song playing on tape over the PA? Why isn't Eric, if no one else, on stage to do that fucker live? Why not one good time and why not THIS one good time? That would have capped it off perfectly and made it truly spectacular. It was great as it was, but that little detail would have blown the doors off of it and made it eternal.
On to Disc 2. I found this one, quite honestly, to be less than interesting most of the time. There are 25,000 people who were there that this will mean more to than to me. There are another 25,000 relatives of those people, another 40 - 50,000 in the fan clubs and another 5 or 6,000 staff and crew that it will also mean more to than I. Listen, it was a great event, one for the ages and I'm glad they did it. Marjo Verdooren did a phenomenal job putting it all together, but testimonials mean dick to me. If I wanted to hear the commentary and thoughts of the other Manowar fans, I would join the various message boards and ask every one of them to send me a tape. Seriously, I don't care about an endless array of people parading in front of a camera whose sole value here is as a fan of the band. Instead of wasting my time with that shit, how about putting up the entire Karl Logan Guitar Clinic, which looked to be the most interesting of them all? All of Scott Columbus' Drum Clinic? Did Donnie Hamzik and Rhino get drum clinics? Where are those? How about putting up the entirety of Eric Adam's Meet & Greet? How about the entirety of all the band member's respective Meet & Greets? It's nice that the band put out a DVD about essentially nothing but the fans, but is there really a huge, untapped
demographic of people who give a shit about this kind of thing? The fans are there because of THE BAND and buying the fucking DVD because of THE BAND, not to see other fans, even the half or completely nude ones. The appearance of Ken Kelly was hyped as a big deal for the convention and he barely appears on the DVD. How about putting a segment in for him, who has as almost much to do with the imagery of Manowar as the band itself does?
The documentary about how the members all came back together is excellent and about the only redeeming thing on the second DVD. The second part, mostly narrated by Marjo, is long and of varying interest. It's pretty cool to see the Jomsvikings engaging in actual combat and acting out to some of the Manowar songs, bringing them to life very well. Much of the other crap could have been cut or severely shortened. The Arm Wrestling, Scream, Fan Confessionals, Miss MANOWAR and Beer Drinking chapters could have been pared down or deleted entirely to make room for things of actual interest.
As for what IS there, as mentioned, the documentary is excellent, Logan's guitar clinic shows a lot of promise before being abruptly and rather wickedly cut, the Q & A session is pretty cool before Joey shitcans it after being asked about his reading material selections. There are some funny parts in the Ross The Boss Guitar Clinic. Not for the first time, I wished I was there so I could have seen finally how he played the riff for The Next Big Thing from the Dictators. Ask for a Dictators riff in a Manowar fan convention? Bet your ass I would have. It was interesting watching him play, except the camera kept straying off onto things other than him playing, which was irritating. His was one of a guy playing through a bunch of riffs or entire songs without accompaniment and letting the fans sing along. Ross The Boss was easily the most moved by this entire thing, in complete contract to DeMaio, who was stoic and stone-faced throughout.
Shankle's guitar clinic featured again his whispery guitar sound. I wondered if the audio was screwed on the first DVD, but apparently Shankle, playing in a room with just his amp and no other noise, still sounds that quiet. Eventually the shot gets to his Line 6 pod and I stopped wondering why he was so quiet...his tone, when it can be heard, is not particularly wonderful, either. Shankle played along to a couple songs and demonstrated some technique, but this was not a particularly wonderful clinic, either.
The artwork here is again fantastic. Embossed box + foldout paneling + a booklet with commentary from nearly all the principal players in this event and the DVDs themselves again shows Manowar's level of attention to detail to those things. They look after the packaging extremely well, probably better than any other band out there. If 1/10th of that care went into picking the set list on the first DVD and into more judicious editing on the second DVD (or even adding a 3rd DVD) and this would have lived up to the hype and expectations, huge as they were, that I had when I first heard of the band's plans for this historic even, now a year and a half removed.
The 411: This is the first misstep of any kind I can remember the band having, so they were probably due. I doubt they will agree with my conclusion that it's a misstep, but I stand by the validity of every point I made. There's a huge difference between good and great and good enough never is. I know what I want to see and what I want to see is greatness, not almost there. It won't make me stop buying Manowar DVDs by any means, but the final result here is disappointing. First disc is highly recommended, stupid hard cuts, weird panning and good production shit notwithstanding, second disc for fans only.
