Live in the LBC - Diamonds in the Rough - Avenged Sevenfold DVD/CD set Review

Avenged Sevenfold

DVD/CD set Review

Bands like Avenged Sevenfold spend most of their time on the road and working their butts off - for the bucks and the fans. The snail salute goes global coupled with much strutting, bawling and lots of profanity topped off with the ubiquitous "I Wanna See Ya F**kin Hands" at every opportunity. In fact AS are pretty damn good at what they do. Before supporting the mighty Maiden at Twickenham (and no doubt recruiting a few new converts along the way), they embarked on a gig at their "Favourite F**kin Place On The Goddamn Planet" - Long Beach, California recorded it for prosperity and no doubt as a thank you to all the "Greatest F**kin Fans In The Whole Muthaf**kin World" (probably).

Much rock-posturing is here, much grabbing of crotches, mic stands and frets, much "waaaaaaaaaaahing" and some anthemic rock to boot. Hey, I even saw some crowd-surfing and more the odd foot on the amps and monitors! Their guitarist calls himself Synyster Gates - come on, ya gotta luv em.

The DVD is a high-resolution rollercoaster through their more familiar album tracks including the near-pop "Afterlife" which mixes the EMO sound, Pantera and Maiden together to ferment a pretty hefty brew of hope, anger and more snail salutes. My only criticism of the disc is it sounds a bit polished when it should sound bass-heavy and dirty (it is a live gig after all). But the sound and the personality of the band carries this performance through and it is very nicely filmed. I had to watch it in black and white since the player I have can't handle ALL region DVDs - I tell you what though, it looked pretty good! AS acheive a mix of old school and new school metal with some bloody heavy thuddering beats from The Rev (!). They even have a crack at Pantera's "Walk" with a 'guest' from the audience - good effort. You get the impression there is a real bond between punter and act. They get all patriotic on "Gunslinger" the only irksome moment - but then it blasts into "Unholy Confessions" and the closing "Little Piece Of Heaven" and all is well again. There are also bikini-clad lovelies for all the fratters. The extras feature some rehearsed 'intros' and, er, humourous and manly bonding in a bath tub. The CD features unreleased stuff including a cover of Maiden's "Flash Of The Blade" from Powerslave. It's just OK.

Paul Pledger