Manowar - Campo Pequeno, Lisbon, Portugal, 2nd April 2011

Manowar are alive and kicking, as they proved last Saturday night in Lisbon (Portugal). Almost twelve years after their last concert in the country, no fan wanted to miss the bands return to Portuguese soil, not even some famous people, like Moonspell singer, Fernando Ribeiro, or prized writer José Luís Peixoto, which I spotted in the crowd.

In front of a packed Campo Pequeno, Manowar started with the full Battle Hymns album, almost in the same order than the record (they started with Manowar instead of Death Tone, and left Joey DeMaio's William's Tale for later), which is a good album but not the best and hasn't any song that everyone sings along, except maybe Battle Hymn, so the crowd was happy but not overly excited.

After a small break filled with Karl Logan's solo, the band attacked their greatest hits and the crowd answered going completely wild, singing every note with hands in the air. This was the best part of the concert with its highest moment being the ballad Heart Of Steel, a magical moment between the audience and the band.



After Fighting the World, the band hit a series of songs from the 2002 album, Warriors Of the World, and it was clear that much less people could sing along, being Thunder in the Sky, the title track from their 2009 EP, the concerts lowest moment, with almost no one being able to follow, because they didn't knew the song (I had never heard it before) and because the sound was too high.
The Power recovered the audience to the show, and justified the calls for the encore.

The encore started with a five minute speech of Joey DeMaio, all in Portuguese (I think he memorized it, because it didn't look like he was reading), hailing Portugal, the Portuguese and themselves. It was useful to remind me what I don't like about Manowar, which is their "we are better than the rest" attitude.

Kings Of Metal, Warriors Of the World and Black Wind, Fire and Steel provided a very nice encore, at the end of which the band left the stage.
The Crown and the Ring (Lament of Kings) was just played by the sound system when the crew was already starting to dismounts the settings.

The crowd was awesome in its support to the band, cheering and singing along the majority of the songs, and definitely had deserved to listen to Courage or Master Of the Wind (or both), maybe sacrificing one or two songs from Battle Hymns.

All in all, this was a great show, by a legendary band, full of vitality after thirty years on the business of making Metal. A splendid Saturday night with a few magical moments, which could only have been better if the sound was a bit lower (loud is good, too loud is annoying).

Setlist:
Manowar / Death Tone / Metal Daze / Fast Taker / Shell Shock / Dark Avenger / Battle Hymn / Sun of Death (Karl Logan solo) / Brothers of Metal Pt. 1 / Kill With Power / Hail and Kill / Heart of Steel / William's Tale (Joey DeMaio bass solo) / Sign of the Hammer / Fighting the World / Call to Arms / House of Death / Hand of Doom / Thunder in the Sky / The Power
Encore:
Kings of Metal / Warriors of the World United / Black Wind, Fire and Steel / The Crown and the Ring (Lament of the Kings)


[Edit] As I was finalizing this review, I just heard that Scott Columbus (Manowar's drummer for 21 years) passed away Monday evening. Sad, sad news. Valhalla has a new drummer...