Six Feet Under has put out a number of video releases already, including a conceptual release entitled Double Dead, which featured the band "killing" a rabid fan. This time, Six Feet Under brings their minimal game at it's best with Wake the Night! Live in Germany, a one disc recording of a live performance at Party San Open Air on August 8th, 2009. The DVD captures the band at their best, featuring seventeen of the band's well known tracks for a performance that lasts a little over an hour. But, with it only being a one hour performance, the question is whether or not this DVD of minimal content is actually worth it.
Wake the Night! Live in Germany is a fantastic DVD for what little it offers in content, in that it's very well done. There are a few issues about it that bothered the hell out of me, including the obvious audio transitions between certain songs, such as the transition at the start between "No Warning Shot" and "Silent Violence" whetre the lights go down, whether by the stage or by the editing on the final product, and you see people close to the panning camera clapping, but yet the audio fades out to silence before fading in to more crowd reaction, clearly showing it was a forced transition that didn't quite work out. There are also moments in the recording where songs seem to just abruptly shift. Again, this happens right at the start with "Silent Violence" sounding as if it was abruptly cut off and the start of "Revenge of the Zombie" was started a few seconds too late into the opening guitar squeel. There seems to be a problem with every transition to a new song on here, whether it's a poor transition, or there's just no transition whatsoever and it just slams in with audio. Aside all that, the opening titles load the second you pop the DVD into your player, and then you have to choose if you want to play the entire thing, or select a song. This wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for the fact that if you want to watch "No Warning Shot" in any way, you gotta sit through those same exact opening credits all over again, and thensome! While the graphics look good, it's just annoying as hell. Luckily, that's the only time the credits really seem to impact the DVD, but it's enough to lose the viewers attention, especially when the title cards are laid over the start of "No Warning Shot".
With those faults pointed out and out of the way, it's time to truly enjoy this DVD recording. The performance by Six Feet Under is fantastic. While the guitarist and bassist don't really move around that much on stage, they still headbang along and clearly look like they are into the music. Chris Barnes, however, steals the show with his on stage performance. The creepy outward appearance of Chris is enough to really draw the attention away in the first place, with his creepy lumbered stance and dreds that cover his face to his legs, really giving him a dusty, somewhat mummified look, he exhumes plenty of energy on stage with walking around and really getting the crowd into it. Hearing the gutterals of "Death Metal grandpa", as some metal fans put it, actually make sense when you see his physical outward appearance on stage, and you really can't picture anything else from him working. The high squeels also come into play well, as they sound as creepy as the man looks. The camera seems to be focused on his quite a lot too, including the audience, and doesn't necessarly spend a lot of time on the other members of the band, which is sad as there are plenty of moments such as the slower, haunting moments of "Revenge of the Zombie" where you want to see all the members on stage when the pyro is erupting, even a given guitar solo where it pans to Barnes again, or the crowd.
But, while the start of the DVD is fantastic, and the band's performance is spectacular, the DVD starts to give the viewer a headache. It's extremely hard to sit down and enjoy the performance of the band, including when the editors happen to get the right shots, like the end of "Revenge of the Zombie" when they finally do show the band from a distance on stage with pyro, it's for a short second or two. The cameras constantly change! This is something with live DVDs I personally don't understand, and seriously cannot stand. While it's nowhere near the ADHD riddled camera shifts on the Blind Guardian Imaginations Through the Looking Glass, it's still pretty rough to watch at times, and depending on the speed of the song, they can really get out of hand. This is sad because the cameras used really look nice and are of a higher quality, though don't quite look like high definition cameras forced onto a regular DVD. Include the excellent audio quality taken from the sound board of the performance, and you have the makings of a killer live DVD that only feels faulted by another ADHD editor, which actually is alarming since Chris Barnes produced the DVD apparently, making one wonder if he really had a good amount of input past the initial recording of the performance.
The set list is great, and really captures the best of the band throughout the years of it's existence. Each track on here is definitely a fan favorite, ranging from "Feasting on the Blood of the Insane", "Shot in the Head", to "Deathklaat" and more. Newer and older material collide, and you can tell the band is enjoying playing each of these songs, or at least you think given the constant shifts. Sometimes it feels like Chris is struggling a bit to do certain vocals on stage, which does kind of hurt a bit, but the guy manages to pull it off in the end. Meanwhile, the other band members never seem to have any problems. Drummer Greg Gall even seems to be a little bored in some of the slower songs, which is just kind of funny to watch as his often serious intensity in his face turns to a zombie-like stare of boredom.
Aside the many production issues, Wake the Night! Live in Germany is a fantastic release. It really does capture the band's live performance and energy they bring with them perfectly through a fantastic set list that definitely had the fans in mind. This actually feels rather obvious given the band's lack of Death 'N Roll material. There are no songs taken from that period of the band's existence, which is such a relief. On a personal level though, I greatly would have enjoyed seeing at least one song from the Graveyard Classics II album performed live, just for the fun of it, but it's great to see the band acknowledge that they know the fans didn't like that material at all, and didn't put the crowd through it.
The only other thing to really talk about is the DVD case. Metal Blade has been resorting to really thin packaging with their release lately. Some people like it, some don't. Well, the DVD packaging is starting to take a hit too in a sense. The packaging for Wake the Night! Live in Germany is essentially a large piece of thin card board bent in half to make it feel thick, glued together, with a plastic holder glued on inside. There's no accompanying booklet with notes on the release at all, or random pictures, but the production and band member information on the inside panel. The DVD case itself is of a low quality card board paper that when you hold it, you will leave finger prints, and it's going to get banged up really quick, showcasing the wear and tear in the most embarassing of fashions. While the DVD case is much thinner and lighter, it just feels as if quality had been sacrificed, and that the main expense on the hefty purchase price of this DVD is pocketed instead of going for stronger, more durable materials. Yes, it looks nice, but when it starts to get dinged up, and after holding it for the first time, it starts to look horrible.
So, in the end, what it all comes down to is that the performance is fantastic, and rabid Six Feet Under fans will greatly enjoy the performance, and the experience. However, the DVD is plagued with constant camera changes that are migraine enducing, horrid transitions between songs when there's no actual transition into the next song by the band on stage, the opening titles are annoying as all hell, and the packaging just flat out looks nice but feels cheap. It honestly isn't the worst DVD you'll come across, especially for a bare bones model. The performance itself really is worth picking this DVD up, and fans of the band will probably come back to this DVD a number of times because of how fantastic a job the band does as a whole. Other then that, the DVD will disapoint on many levels, but they seem to mostly be the levels that almost every live DVD stumbles with for some reason.
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