Customer Reviews

Stage Fright [HD DVD]

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

The Good
Disc 1: The first disc highlights Motorhead's historic performance at the Philipshalle in Düsseldorf, Germany from December 7, 2004. Motorhead were in the midst of their Inferno World Tour. This is probably the best lit and best shot Motorhead show that I have ever seen. Not only do you get muti-camera angles, but there's a stop-motion camera that takes some cool shots too. The show sounds great in both stereo and 5.1. You get 20 Motorhead tunes in all. Songs include all the classics of course; "Dr. Rock," "No Class," "R.A.M.O.N.E.S.," "Killed by Death," "Iron Fist," "Ace of Spades," and "Overkill."

You also get a sprinkling from their latest album Inferno that includes "Killers" and "Whorehouse Blues;" a song in which the group break out the acoustic guitars. As Lemmy says, Motorhead always tries to hit you with something new. You even get rare tracks that are hardly played live such as "Dancing on Your Grave." You have a few options when it comes to viewing the show. You can have visual commentary in which the show cuts away to the group for their thought, you can have audio commentary which narrates over the show, or you can have subtitles of the commentary. I do have to warn you though; the commentary is more of a pat on the back then anything really insightful or interesting. They do give a few choice nuggets of info though.

Disc 2: This disc contains all the extras. The extras aren't spectacular, but they're not horribly boring either. "L.A. Special" covers the backstage scene before a big Motorhead show. You get to see brief interviews with artists like Dave Grohl, Chris Jericho, Kerry King, and other about how influential Motorhead was for them. The "Fans" section is comprised of die-hards that they caught in the lobby before the big Germany show. You wouldn't believe some of the huge and extensive tattoos some of these people have. "Testimonials" are various touring stories provided by the road crew.

"We Are the Road Crew" is a mini documentary on the members of Motorhead's stage crew. I have to stay that the cook steals the show with his loving surliness. You can view a slide show of the Germany show and read Motorhead's back stage tour rider. Can you believe they all hate Hershey bars? "Making Of" gets into all of the technical and physical aspects of putting the Germany show together. There's a DVD portion of this disc in which you can view a high-definition version of the "Overkill" performance, download wallpapers (I have one on my computer now), download ringtones (wasn't compatible with my phone, and view their discography (their SPV/Steamhammer discography).

The Bad
Very minor stuff. As I said before, the commentary is not very interesting, and the bonus material is okay, but unless you're into all the technical and backstage stuff, it won't blow you away.

The Verdict
They are Motorhead, and Stage Fright is going to kick your ass!

"Stage Fright" is arguably one of the best concert dvds I have purchased. Any Motorhead fan needs to add this to their cart ASAP. Why? Great camera work, great sound, great price and the best band on the planet, Motorhead. The camerawork is excellent. The dvd does not fall prey to the "switch the picture" every split second disease as often as most concert films. Often concert dvds swith the camera angle so often it makes your head spin, not here. The 5.1 sound is fantastic. Every instrument & vocal come through loud, clear & in your face...right where they need to be! The sound quality is as good as any Motorhead live album released on a cd. The price is very reasonable too. 2 dvds for the price of one. There is a great special feature on disc two about the band and the road crew which is a must see for any Motorhead fan. Last, but not least....MOTORHEAD!! I swear Lemmy has never sounded better and the band is firing on all cylinders. Mickey Dee is rock's best drummer, bar none! Phil Campbell has stepped up his game big time...flat out killer guitar work...leaving even the longest time fans to ask themselves, "Eddie who?". Plus, the set list is really good. All in all, just a few words here to let you know this dvd is as great as advertised. You can even check out zShops and get a pretty good price.

This is the one.No gimmicks,no smoke and mirrors just a wall of unremitting sound and lemmys rasping vocals no doubt well lubricated by a generous measure of jack daniels.
The set includes most of the classic tracks and a couple of songs from the 2004 album "inferno".The number "all in the name of tragedy" is as good as anything they have produced.
In celebration of their thirtieth year, this band no what it takes to move a crowd.Played in Dusseldorf, lemmy wearing his iron cross obviously feels at home and the germans certainly appreciate the finer points of decibal devastation.
If you are aware of motorheads prowess then this dvd is a must buy.Good time guaranteed. ps. Wear the headphones or wait until the neighbours are out.

One suggestion I'd give is to have a good sound system. The sound is awesome. It's the next best thing to being there. Turn it up and buckle up. The 5.1 surround has you in the front row. If you like fast, hard Motorhead, buy this now. Mikkey's bass drum was pounding my chest. Don't hesitate. Whoever engineered this DVD did his job right. Like I said, it kicked my ass!

This is a great experience to watch the show and the back stage stuff is great.
This band is the real deal, sex drugs and rock and roll at it's finest.
The meat and potatoes of rock and roll.
Get it and live Motorhead.
White your listening, get Lemmys book White LIne Fever its a great read as well.

I am wondering, that this incredible dvd is only now released, because its on the european market already for a good time. This is the technical best recorded show with really! big sound, not comparabel with the 25th anniversary dvd!

the extras are very good and its just fun to watch the dvd with the band together and a drink for your own. another highlight is the lightshow. From the band a bit underrated, in my opinion not so colourful but it fits really good with the band, the music and the 21th century feeling. as described there an not as usual 20 000 Watts of light equipment but rather 3000 000 (!) Watts. Have Fun :)

incredible guitar solo an "just `cos you `ve got the power"

I just got this DVD and was very happy that I did. This really outshines Their previous release, Boneshaker. The first thing you notice is the performance. They sound so good it's scary. A total wall of sound. I saw them open up for Iron Maiden a couple of years back here in Montreal and I thought they blew Maiden off the stage. I had never seen them before and I just could not believe the wall of sound they created, as well as the volume they played at. I have never heard anything that loud in my life. What really surprised me was that although they played really loud, the music still came through really clear and clean. It's not like you couldn't make anything out. In fact, I felt they had a better sound than Maiden. And this is what you get with this DVD...the great sound. The 3 members really play well together and it is amazing how the older songs really stand out and sound like they could have been written today. The other great thing about this release is how it was filmed. The camera positioning, lighting and editing really make this interesting to watch. I feel it mixes the best of both worlds, fast pacing in terms of editing with extended close shots of Lemmy, Phil and Mikkey so you can really see them playing their instruments. The bonus disc is interesting as well. Kind of like behind the scenes footage of life on the road. A majority of it centers around their crew and what it is like to put a Motorhead show together and what it's like to travel/work with the band. Another interesting selection on disc one is the "commentary" option. With this option you can watch the concert with running commentary by all 3 band members. At times the screen will split in two and you will see the members sitting on a couch watching the performance and offering their ideas and opinions. I feel this is a nice touch. I have never seen an option like this on other music DVD's. It's really interesting to see them reviewing their own show. The other point I want to make is that you really see just how underrated Phil is as a guitarist. His performance is just outstanding. Stand out cuts are Killers, in the name of Tragedy, Sacrifice, Dancing on your grave, Iron Fist and Overkill. It would have been nice to see them play more songs off the new release like In the Black, Terminal Show and In the year of the Wolf. Motorhead fans and music lovers in general will love this DVD. My only complaint is that I did not like the menu layout. If you want to access the song list to go to a particular track, the menu only gives 4 songs per screen, so if you want to get to track 20, the "next" key will become your new best friend. I would have liked it if all 20 tracks were accessible from one screen. But this complaint is minor. My last complaint is that the "making of" mini-film is not in english. It's interviews with the local people who worked on the project, so it's in their language. But there are options for subtitles. As you can see both my complaints are not nearly enough to stop you from getting this DVD. Thanks to Lemmy for keeping this Motorhead machine going after all these years. You can't help but feel that new life is being pumped into Motorhead. A whole new generation of fans are being turned on to them and hopefully this will be the incentive for Lemmy to keep putting out new material. If he has anything left in him that resembles the material found on "inferno", then we can all consider ourselves lucky, and I personally look forward to hearing it.

Motorhead always gets five stars from me. I think this is a great sounding and very entertaining concert DVD. I have only one complaint . . . the camera angles switch really quickly on this one, just as your focusing on Lemmy, Lemmy's bass, or Phil's guitar the shot moves to something else. I like to watch live concerts so I can see the fingers on the strings and the stage effects, this video makes that very difficult. But hey, it's Motorhead. I turned away from the quick-o camera action and just listened, Motorhead is at the top, I don't see how they keep getting better while other rockers start the downhill slide even younger than Motorhead. I actually enjoyed the disc 2 behind the scenes quite a bit too. I thought it was a really great line while being interviewed, Lemmy says "I don't want to be a rock star, I've met too many of them." Cool. Buy this DVD!!!

I recently had the pleasure of attending a Motorhead concert. When I saw Stage Fright it blew me away. Watching it was like being at the concert, again, except a bit more enhanced and elaborate. Interesting camera angles and effects made this all the more interesting and appealing. And we are treated to a bonus disc of behind the scenes footage as well as a full concert experience. All Motorhead and for that matter heavy metal fans should experience this DVD.

Trully HD, sound and songs blasting, first time I buy anything from Motorhead and now I have become a loyal fan. Haven't seen the extras buy who cares, I just got metallized with the concert and great production that was developed for this product.