Twisted Sister – Live At The Astoria

artist website

publisher

impulse buy

DVE/Global Music
Produced by Hayley Warren/Mark Mendoza

Live DVDs seem to be the order of the day for Twisted Sister at the moment. Last year the A December To Remember one was released, and next year sees their set from the Bang Your Head!!! 2005 festival come out through Warner Home Video.

This double-set puts a CD and DVD of the band’s incendiary show at London’s Astoria last year together at a single album price. Unfortunately it’s yet another set of old Twisted Sister songs with no sign of any new ones, probably ever. And for the most part it’s once again all the obvious songs as well. There’s only so many times fans are going to want to buy these songs, and eventually most of them are going to start be selective with which releases they go for, so quality is paramount.

A hundred times better than the dreadful A December To Remember DVD some of the front-of-stage camera-work here is still fairly amateurish, and the clarity of the different cameras varied as well. The ones on the stage and the one on the crane are all good, but the hand-held ones and the one on the balcony are less so. As with other recent DVE live releases the audio is near perfect, although not as well defined as the Wednesday 13 release.

All small problems, but when the oft-recycled material is taken into account the small problems start to seem more important as they must be put against any existing problems with other Twisted Sister live releases. This is much better than last year’s Christmas one, and the inclusion of the CD version into the bargain is a major plus point. The performance is solid, but a little through-the-motions, despite the energy and enjoyment the band claimed to have felt after the show.

How this compares to the Live At Bang Your Head DVD is unknown at the present time as that releases has either been delayed or cancelled, but generally speaking, just as with the Live At Wacken – The Reunion release, the footage will be taken from local television coverage of the festival, which based on previous releases for other bands, is always of a high standard.

The problems here are small but no insignificant and with a little lifelessness to parts of the performance, how well this stands up as the Twisted Sister live release to own out of those available remains in doubt.

“ oft-recycled material ”

Tracklist: What You Don’t Know (Sure Can’t Hurt You) / The Kids Are Back / Under The Blade / Destroyer / Like A Knife In The Back / Burn In Hell / Ride To Live / Shoot ‘Em Down / You Can’t Stop Rock ‘N’ Roll / The Fire Still Burns / We’re Not Gonna Take It / The Price / I Am, I’m Me / I Wanna Rock / Come Out And Play / S.M.F.

Written by Andy Lye
More: Live Albums, Live DVDs, Twisted Sister