Another very interesting release for the discography of the legendary Accept, just one year after “Restless And Live”. Here, we see the band performing with a symphonic orchestra, something that many have attempted in heavy metal. But they do it in their own, special way.
This Wacken show of 2017 consists of three parts. In the first one, we just see Accept playing five songs for about half an hour. Flawless performance as usual, I don’t think I have to analyze this more.
In the second part, the scene changes. The curtain falls and when it comes back up, the Czech National Symphony Orchestra is ready to rock. The bass and second guitar change hands and only Wolf Hoffmann and Christopher Williams from Accept remain on stage. For about the next half hour we listen tracks from the second solo album of Wolf, entitled “Headbanger’s Symphony”. In this album, he took parts from historic composers (Bach, Vivaldi, Mozart, Beethoven) and combined them with his own riffs and ideas. A very interesting attempt with beautiful visuals on the background, nice light show and smoke/fires on stage.
The third part is what everyone expected. The rest of Accept get back up and for one more hour they perform their own songs with the orchestra. And I have to say that they did an awesome job. For example, some mid-tempo songs like “Dark Side Of My Heart” and “Shadow Soldiers” sound amazing. The same applies to speed metal hymns like “Breaker” and “Fast As A Shark”. The arrangements are perfect and the setlist doesn’t need to be mentioned further, these are classis and beloved metal songs after all.
Of course, I must mention that the direction and overall sound (mastered by Andy Sneap) are exceptional. As for the audience, for second consecutive live DVD, Accept have the bad luck to play in front of a bunch of sleepy losers. I mean, seriously, this is an embarrassment. Only a few exceptions occur when they prove that they are living beings and not wax figures. At least they know how to clap their hands. And this is the audience of the biggest metal festival in the world? Please. Anyway, the bonus parts of this DVD are two small making-ofs. One for the live show and another one for “Headbanger’s Symphony”.
In conclusion, this is a release that any fan of this band will enjoy. It is out there on double CD, triple vinyl and of course double CD with the Blu-ray. And it has also another value, as this is their last release featuring the founder, composer and bassist Peter Baltes, as it was quite a shock announcing his departure from the band just three days before it hit the shelves.
