Festivals of the Wicked

In Spring 2011 I've found a trailer on YouTube with the In Sacred Flames intro as musical dub and several cuts from Iced Earth doing live shows. To makes things clear at first: I was a really embarrassing fanboy back then, so you could sell me literally everything where Iced Earth was written on and something with their mascot Set Abominae was printed on. This means that I had also my interest on this live DVD collection, even though Set Abominae looks ridiculous on it. However, I was curious what live shows would be on it and blindly purchased this one after I have bought the even worse CD version with the same name (review following soon)

I don't care what Jon Schaffer thought about this, but you don't put 2 shows with almost the identical setlist on a live show collection. That's the biggest flaw this DVD has and something that really pissed me off the moment I have looked at the list. First I thought it was some form of misprint, but the Metalcamp Slovenia 2008 and the Rock Hard Festival 2008 have the identical setlist, except for 1 song. I would have been much better to just pick the Rock Hard Festival gig and dump the Metal Camp Slovenia one, solely for the reason that Matt Barlow has hit the highest note on Ten Thousand Strong and still makes Tim Owens look like a fucking idiot with that one, also because of the rare occurence that he has missed the ending part in that song. But everything else is not worth mentioning. If you already have the Alive in Athens album you wouldn't care less about this one, because almost all the songs here have already been performed on that 1999 show, but better and in better audio quality. If you want hear Barlow sing Declaration Day, check out his peak performance on his farewell show at Wacken 2011. And then there is Dracula. It's awesome how he sings this song live, even better than in the studio version, but a whole DVD isn't worth purchasing for 2 songs in 1 show. If Schaffer at least decided to put more special songs on the setlist, but with this he should have picked shows from other tours. There are gigs from the Horrow Show tour in 2001/2002, where the band has played songs from every album and even Curse the Sky. That would have been a great show to keep on a DVD. Or, since the DVD was released in 2011, Schaffer could have picked a show from the Crucible of Man tour that includes songs from that album, no matter how bad the critics are.

Then there is the 3rd show: It's the Wacken 2007 footage with Tim Owens as singer and what can I say, it's a disgrace that they have really picked this one. The audio quality is utter shit, Tim Owens sucks live, the only time he was good live was in Judas Priest, the setlist is almost the same as on the other two shows, except for one more song from Framing Armageddon. OK, we haven't heard Tim Owens sing anything live to that point, if you haven't attended any live shows of course, so it's at least interesting to hear him sing the stuff from the eras before him, but as I said, he sucks live. The reason for it is not that he is untalented, but rather that he is completely bored and doesn't put any effort in his vocals. Come on man, we saw you singing Territory from Sepultura, how can you fuck up Vengence is Mine and Violate? Burning Times is OK, but again, where is the Tim Owens who humiliated Rob Halford with his performance of Diamonds & Rust or Painkiller? But the worst performances here were on his own songs, Declaration Day and Ten Thousand Strong. He sounds as if he's singing under the shower here, no power in his voice, no motivation at all. Tim is still angry at Schaffer that he kicked him out without any warning and even without telling him personally, but seriously, after a performance like this he should have announced his own retirement instead and never touched a mic ever again. And the show really would have been a complete failure if it wasn't for the ending of the last song. Tim goes all out in the middle part and hits a high note and holds that for almost 20 seconds. That is at least astonishing, even though he did better on Live Meltdown/Live in London with Judas Priest at the end of Victim of Changes, since he, again, holded back the energy in his voice on that Wacken Show.

The rest on the DVD are music videos, photo slideshows and the commercial I've talked about in the beginning of the review, so if you want to be reminded about what Iced Earth have promised you and then scammed you with that 15 bucks DVD filled with absolute garbage, you can watch that one again.