Accept - Restless And Live

Published January 1 2017

*=Staff's pick	Stampede Stalingrad* London Leatherboys Restless And Wild Dying Breed Final Journey Shadow Soldiers* Losers And Winners 200 Years Midnight Mover No Shelter Princess Of The Dawn Dark Side Of My Heart Pandemic* Fast As A Shark* Metal Heart* Teutonic Terror* Balls To The Wall

Genre	Heavy Metal	Mark Tornillo	Vocals
Tracks	18	Wolf Hoffmann	Guitar
Runningtime	102 Min.	Uwe Lulis	Guitar
Label	Nuclear Blast	Peter Baltes	Bass
Release	January 13, 2017	Christopher Williams	Drums
Country	Germany/USA	-	Keyboard
Similar artists	---

Comes as Blu-Ray/DVD plus 2 CDs. Filmed at Bang Your Head in Balingen, Germany on July 18th 2015.

Accept puts out a live recording from the Blind Rage tour and I appreciate very much that the band doesn't really base the setlist on the old and classic material that has been seen and heard many times before and when considering that this one was filmed on a festival, where bands tend to play a slightly different set including all the so-called hits and the songs which lead up to their breakthrough to fit an audience with not only real fans, it's even more amazing to know that 10 out of a total of 18 songs come of off the 3 records made since the band's return in 2010, Blood Of The Nations, Stalingrad and Blind Rage.

Original members Wolf Hoffmann and Peter Baltes have a good time on stage again and on numerous times the both stand together facing each other for some teamwork and happy faces. Vocalist Mark Tornillo is really a well-established part of the band at this point, even if his stage presence and his kind of scarce interaction with he crowd are things that he would have to work on a little bit to intensify the show even more. The latest additions to the band don't get a lot of attention on this film, really. Uwe Lulis clearly has an unspectacular position as rhythm guitarist beside Wolf for the most part and drummer Christopher Williams is mostly visible on the screen when he sort of happens to be caught on camera as he's right behind Mark when the latter is being filmed in the center of the stage.

All these cool riffs make me listen with rapture and Wolf's leads and solos are nothing but awesome and this guy seems to possess an endless amount of nice guitar plays. The songs are stunning too and I believe that Accept probably would never have been such a huge live act if the band hadn't been on hiatus a few times when things didn't pan out with former vocalist Udo Dirkschneider. I definitely don't blame Udo for anything else than it takes two sides to debate, but it's a whole different monster we see on stage now in comparison to the unsuccessful attempts in the 90's and 00's to take the band back to the golden days of the 80's.

On the negative side, and maybe I'm just being a dick now, but the stage lighting isn't optimal for filming a show and depending on which color coming out of the spotlights the picture isn't always quite as sharp and clear as expected. I also find it somewhat boring that this product doesn't contain anything more than just a live performance, as I'm looking for something else too when I'm checking out a DVD, like some interviews or background information around the gig or even something about the new members of the band. A 102 minute live show by Accept is definitely an enjoyable moment, nevertheless it shouldn't take too much of an effort to create and edit some bonus features too out of the band's long career.

See also review of: The Rise Of Chaos , Blind Rage , Stalingrad

Production	Vocals	Compositions
6	6	9
Extra material
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Summary
7 chalices of 10 - Tobbe