Hi all!
Finally the day came for which I waited for months, no, for years! Finally Manowar live again. For me already the 5th time in the last 10 years, but still good as usual. Together with a fellow we headed to Dortmund. After all the bad utterances about the opener Bludgeon we preferred to stay home a bit longer and we missed their performance (which wasn't that bad at all, we still heard some of the last beats). So, on arrival we got in without queuing, drank a beer without ruffle and searched our places. At 21:30 it finally started, the lights went off, the fanfares droned and Orson Welles initiated two cheerful hours.
At the beginning I found the sound very lowly, everything sounded completely distorted and overdriven, but it got better during the course of the show. Probably they tinkered with the sound a bit or I just got used to it, whatever. Manowar kicked off as if they were on the run and played for the first 35 minutes without making a single break, well, maybe they do not like applause. The mood was good, but it exploded during "Warriors of the World United". This proved me directly in my opinion that many knew Manowar actually or mainly through the big success of the single and the album last summer, and of course due to the appearance at TV Total, because during the older songs most people did not sing along failing knowledge of the lyrics. Only the hardcore fans in the front rows gave everything.
The setlist was the same as at other German shows, so I am not going to list it here. I wished some other classics, but well, you can't please everybody. However they played 5 tracks from the "Louder than Hell" and none from the "Fighting the World", whereby in my opinion at least "Carry On" belongs to every Manowar concert. The acoustic part was doozy, a medley from different ballads, which gave the ears a short spell to relax, after tracks like "Outlaw" and "Power". And then the Harleys came... If you agree with me that a Harley is loud in the normal traffic then you should try to imagine how 4 harleys in a closed hall sound, whereby each had to have a microphone tied to the exhaust pipe and the sound sent through each single amp and speaker. INSANE!!!! The four drove each twice over the stage and Joey once again found a groupie who did not attach too much importance to her outerwear. However, the kissing scene, obligatory during the last years, did not take place, maybe even a DeMaio becomes settled?? After a terrific finish spurt and a promise to come back again the concert finished after exactly 2 hours.
All things considered a good, solid concert, but I missed the mood a bit. Maybe it was also due to the fact that the Westfalenhalle was anything but not full packed. I guess about 8.000 people have been there (it fits up to 14.000). And would not Manowar have taken part in the DM=Euro-story a sold out hall would be surely possible, because 39 Euro are quite expensive, if it costed only the half before.
I wish a lot of fun to all who still wait for a show and see you on the next tour.
Greetings from the Ruhrpott
Martin
The first surprise for me was, after my 10th MANOWAR show so far, that the hall was only half filled (that's not the way I remembered it from the last shows!). Seems that the hall was too big. Let me just say this about the support band: they simply don't fit to MANOWAR! MANOWAR were great. Extreme good sound, Eric at his best, good playlist, what more could you want? But the reactions of most fans were dissappointing. As I read it in other reviews from other shows I could not believe it, but it really was like that. The fans just stood there, smoking and listening to the music as if they were on a pop concert. "Whimps and Posers leave the hall!!!" This night was great anyway, though I can't become accustomed to the fact that Battle Hymns did not close the set. I just hope that I won't have to wait long for the next tour.
Uwe "The Warrior"
