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Events and Reports - Manowar - Live At Birmingham O2 Academy, March 27th 2011
Manowar and Britain used to get on like a house on fire, just think about it: "We met on English ground", "Our brothers in England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales" and of course "Hail, Hail to England". But then in the 90's something changed and for many barren years it looked like the chances of us seeing Manowar return to British shores were about as likely as Achilles resting until Hectors blood was spilled.
So as you can imagine when I'm sitting in a pub last December and I get a very excited text saying, "Manowar are playing Birmingham!!!" I was a rather happy brother of metal! Tickets were purchased as soon as they went on sale, hotels were booked, bus tickets were gained and the agonising wait to head out on the road once more began.
We had made arrangements to travel down the day before the gig to meet up with our good friends Jim and Paul for the House Of Death forum party at a pub in Birmingham. This was a fantastic night where many a Guinness was drunk from my new handmade, leather Sign Of The Hammer tankard (cheers Paul!) and where we watched local heavy metal band Conquest Of Steel put on a great show followed by Manowar tribute band Danowar playing just their third ever gig. Danowar were a good laugh and really got into the party atmosphere of the weekend, I don't think Eric Adams will have to worry about lead singer Phil usurping him any time soon but our man of the moment did a valiant job of matching the American with the lungs of steel (minus the high bits).
Thanks again to the HOD guys for hosting the party as everyone seemed to be having a great time and cheers to the guys who arranged the T-shirts, even although I don't think mine will get worn too often, it not quite the done thing for a Scotsman to walk about with Hail To England written on his back!
The next day started with a vicious hangover from hell but we still made it to the pub in time to watch the Scotland vs. Brazil football game. We probably shouldn't have bothered as we ended up getting beat 2-0. Still, it gave us a chance to recover from the hangover and we headed to the local Birmingham rock pub Scruffy Murphy's where the drinking really began in earnest. Scruffy's may not be the cleanest of drinking establishments but the atmosphere was great with everyone singing along to a fine selection of Manowar classics. We met up with Jim again and bumped into several other people we knew. We were also joined by four Swedish guys, one of whom I met at Sweden Rock last year, they were top lads and more than matched us for alcohol consumption over the course of the day.
We figured it was then time to head to the venue; we arrived (via a stop at a off-licence for some cans of Guinness) to be confronted with a CHUFFING MASSIVE QUEUE outside. I can't accurately describe how big this queue was without being filled with that sense of worry I felt as we walked a good 5 minutes away from the venue, round several corners until we finally found the end. Thank the Metal Gods that its legal to drink of the street in Birmingham otherwise that queue may have been the end of me.
It turned out that the reason behind the queue was because security were searching everyone thoroughly for cameras and forcing people to leave them with the security team before they were let into the hall. This put me on edge a little as the instruction came directly from the band. They will tell you it's to fight bootleggers and to stop clips being put online as the concert was being professionally filmed. But I'd like to question why a band that sings so much about personal freedom would want us to submit meekly to authority over what's really a pretty trivial matter.
Also as we ended up the front, I can tell you that security were physically forcing their way into the crowd and dragging people out who had the gall to film and photo the band as they performed. All I can say is fuck this nonsense next time you tour guys. It's a bit of a downer when the security are constantly jumping up on the barriers to shout at some guy just cause he has held his crappy 3 mega-pixel camera in the air to get a couple of pictures as a keepsake.
But overall this was a minor niggle that was soon forgotten about once Manowar were witnessed in full flight.
As I said, I had grabbed a great spot down the front just slightly to the right of where Karl Logan would spend the majority of the night. This meant that I had a superb view of all the action. The roar of the crowd as the houselights went down, the intro tape blared and the band kicked into their signature track Manowar was incredible, it was clear this crowd were here for one thing only, heavy metal, as loud as it can be!
And they certainly got it; the band tore through the entire Battle Hymns album, barely pausing for breath. Each and every song sounded remarkable, from Donnie Hamzik's thundering double bass at the end of Shellshock to Eric's ear shattering screams on the chorus of Fast Taker and Joey's mighty bass rig thundering through a special P.A system installed at the bands request. I must admit to still taking a bit of an issue with Karl Logan completely changing the leads to the Battle Hymns tracks as quite frankly you can't beat the Ross The Boss originals but I can't argue with the way he ripped through is own arrangements with precision.
The sound, for what is after all only a medium sized venue (it holds about 3000) was second to none in most respects all night. The drum sound in particular took my breath away at points and had me banging my head even harder than normal. Overall the sound was perhaps a little bass heavy, drowning out the guitar on occasion but then, are you going to tell Joey Demaio to turn down?
Dark Avenger got the crowd moving as it kicked in after the spoken word section, it was strange to hear the band use the Christopher Lee version rather than the tradition Orson Wells narration but just as chilling. Then followed a stunning version of Battle Hymn itself, Eric's vocals were just perfect on this one and it remains one of the finest moments in the long history of heavy metal.
The rest of the band then left the stage to allow Karl Logan a solo spot, returning to start the party again with a sing along version of the anthem Brothers Of Metal. Kill With Power notched up the intensity levels again with no prisoners being taken in terms of the speed of the playing and the evil delivery of Eric's vocals. It's a great song to hear live as it has one of the great Manowar audience participation moments, nothing quite like hearing 3000 people screaming "DIE, DIE" during the chorus.
Metal Warriors was great to finally hear live as they didn't play it back in 2008 when I saw them at the Magic Circle Festival and lets face it, it's a quintessential Manowar track. But as good as it was it paled in comparison to the magical version of Heart Of Steel that followed it. Everything about it was perfect, the band strip down the intro to the bear bones when played live, with even Joey stopping at points to let the crowd sing along. And sing they did, but not as well as Eric who utterly nailed the vocals, including the spine-tingling high parts with ease. To be honest I would have travelled down to Birmingham and paid the price of the ticket just for these five minutes alone.
Joeys bass solo (which included Williams Tale) was just about the perfect length and as it turned out he didn't have time for one of his trademark speeches as the curfew for the venue was so tight, with the band needing to be off stage for 11pm.
In a way this made for an even better gig as the band laid bloody waste to the venue with song after song. I really cannot stress the intensity of the performance, lesser men would have been reduced to quivering wrecks after Call To Arms followed by Sign Of The Hammer but not this crowd of warriors. They craved more and were provided with it as in the moment of the night for me the band went straight from a forceful version of House Of Death into a devastating rendition of another of my favourite Manowar songs The Power.
I think my vocal chords were about to give way after that one but there was no rest as this was followed by Hail To Scotland (or Hail to England as a few of you may be calling it), this cause the sign of the hammer to be raised by just about every person in the room, regardless of nationally and you could see that the band were loving the reaction.
The house lights then went down as the stage was vacated for a short time before the final onslaught began with Kings Of Metal, this one had me and many others jumping about to its rocking groove.
Warriors Of The World was tremendous and really takes on an extra special dimension live when the crowd sing in place of the keyboard/choir melody. The only other thing I can compare it to is being in the crowd while Black Sabbath, Heaven And Hell or Dio (R.I.P) preformed the song Heaven And Hell, it's just that special.
The set was brought to a close with a captivating, conquering Hail and Kill and the monstrous Black Wind Fire And Steel. Eric's scream of "I am an outcast on the path of no return" will be seared into my brain for a long time just like the ringing in my ears after the hail of feedback as Joey ripped the strings one by one off his bass, handing them to lucky members of the audience.
Leaving the stage with the words "Thank you, it's been magical, we will return" Eric and the boys left Britain knowing that they had conquered this shore once again and left us holding our hammers high singing to the immortal words of The Crown And The Ring. You know that when even singing to an outro tape is a moving experience that it's been a special night.
I can only hope that Manowar do return to Britain soon and perhaps even to Scotland, which they haven't seen since the 80's. You never know, it may just happen!
Set List:
1. Manowar
2. Death Tone
3. Metal Daze
4. Fast Taker
6. Dark Avenger
7. Battle Hymn
8. Sun Of Death (Karl Logan solo)
9. Brothers Of Metal
10. Kill With Power
11. Metal Warriors
12. Heart Of Steel
13. Williams Tale
14. Fighting The World
15. Call To Arms
16. Sign Of The Hammer
17. House Of Death
18. The Power
19. Hail To England
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20. Kings Of Metal
21. Warriors Of The World
22. Hail And Kill
23. Black Wind Fire And Steel
24, Crown And The Ring (Outro Tape)
| | Written by Stuart
Thursday, March 31, 2011 |
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RevelationZ Comments
| Comment by Steen (Staff) - Thursday, March 31, 2011 | 
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Comments: 518 | | Sounds like a fantastic time! Wish I could have been there.
Posted by Steen (Staff)
Thursday, March 31, 2011 |
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| Comment by Nina (Staff) - Monday, April 4, 2011 | 
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Comments: 40 | |
What a great review, Stuart! I loved the intro, especially: "it looked like the chances of us seeing Manowar return to British shores were about as likely as Achilles resting until Hectors blood was spilled." Haha, brilliantly put!
It must have been a magical evening! The setlist looks great and it sounds like the performance was top notch as well!
Wish I'd been there, next time I will!
Posted by Nina (Staff)
Monday, April 4, 2011 |
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