Magic Circle Festival Volume II featuring Manowar: The Kings of Metal 20th Anniversary Event DVD

Posted by: Dave Berry | Apr 19, 09

“If you’re into metal and you don’t listen to Manowar it kind [of] speaks that you’re not a real man.”- Some random kid talking tough for the camera.

I was first introduced to Manowar about three years ago by my sister. I was in college and metal was in short supply in my trustifarian town. She made me a metal mix CD and put the Manowar song “Hail and Kill” on there and after I heard it for the first time I didn’t listen to another song off that disc. I can’t even remember what else was on there. It didn’t matter, I was hooked. On my next trip home I made sure to pick up the only Manowar CD I could find at the local music shop on my way back down to the old college town. It just happened to be Kings of Metal, the CD with “Hail and Kill” on it. The Gods of Metal had smiled upon me and placed the hammer of Thor in my CD player to smash all the hippie music that damn town would try to throw at me. I was addicted and it didn’t matter because I shredded harder than all of those damn hippies in that rotten mountain burg.

This DVD is a celebration of Manowar. It is also a retrospect on their lifetime as a band. It is also proof that Germany rocks harder than America in its sleep, and harder than the rest of the world when its awake. This DVD details the second Magic Circle Festival, focusing on Manowar’s historic two-night performance in which they played their first six albums in sequence (three on the first night, three on the second). Pretty incredible stuff. Sadly, the DVD doesn’t contain both nights in their entirety, but the songs that are there, such as “Hatred,” “All Men Play On Ten,” and “The Crown and the Ring” will have any true Manowar fan raising the sign of the Hammer high above his couch at any given moment throughout the presentation.

I threw down and scored myself the “Limited Two-Disc Steelbook Edition” because I simply had to (the only other DVD that I own in a metal case is the re mastered edition of Akira). Really though, what good is a Manowar DVD case if it can’t also be used as a weapon if some emo kid comes through my front door?

The first disc is obviously the main event and the second is bonus content. Disc one opens with a sweeping crowd shot of the festival, then some dude named Udo Sapper, AKA “Mr. Metal” starts preaching the power of true metal to a bloodthirsty crowd waiting to destroy the gates outside. Then it’s into a montage that shows the preparation of the stage as “Wariors of the World” plays. This opening sequence is why I said that Germany rocks harder than America in its sleep. I have never heard of a metal show as big as this one was in the US (35,000 strong) except for maybe the Milwaukee Metal Fest, but I’ve never seen photos of that. Bassist/Band leader Joey DeMaio goes into the first retrospect scene from there. The retrospects were pretty interesting to me because I didn’t know that much about the history of Manowar. I had no idea that they showed up Ted Nugent himself with their equipment semi during a short-lived tour with him. Poor old “Motor City ‘Madman’” only had a Ryder truck full of equipment. Madman my ass. The disc rolls on with songs and retrospects but I did notice something strange; a handful of the songs were recorded at a show Bulgaria six days prior. Why these recordings were mixed in with the festival show I have no idea. These tracks are just as good as the Germany show tracks, it’s just a bit inconsistent.

Disc two’s main feature is an opening band sampler highlighting seven of the opening acts from the last day of the festival. The first band, Cassock, got on because they won a battle of the bands that was going on at the festival. If they won, I’d hate to hear the losers, but at least the singer chick is pretty hot. Most of the bands here really aren’t worth checking out except for Jack Starr’s Burning Starr, Metalforce, and Holyhell for some baroque keyboard-driven power metal with a chick singer (think Nightwitch meets Dragonforce while drunk in an alley).

The bonus features on disc two is where the total insanity of Manowar and their fans is documented and displayed for the world. In one section, “Fire and Faith” Joey DeMaio presides over a viking marriage ritual, then Eric Adams (vocals) shoots a flaming arrow via compound bow into a viking ship mock-up that was built in the middle of a field at the festival. That shit was rad. Another memorable scene is called “Breaking The World Record Again,” Joey DeMaio has the sound guy fire up Manowar’s trademark wall of amps to see how loud they would go. They went to 138.4 dB, which set the world record for world’s loudest band.

This DVD is not for the casual metal fan who is still clinging to the belief that Metalica has put out a good song in the past 15 years. This is for the true metal fan. This is for the guy who has seen Iron Maiden more times than he can count and has the tour shirt from each show. This is for the guy who went to the Slayer/Marilyn Manson tour in ’06 and left as soon as Slayer was over because he thinks Marilyn Manson sucks. Oh yeah, this is for the Manowar fans. Those guys are pretty crazy.

If you think you can handle the pure, face-shredding metal that is Manowar you can order up your very own copy from this site:

http://store.magiccirclemusic.com/storefront.php

“Fuck the world, hail and kill.” -Joey DeMaio

Official Site: http://www.manowar.com

Shred hard,
Dave Berry