Year: 2021
Total Time: 02:00:03
Label: AFM Records
From the fan’s perspective: Imagine yourself now after all that has happened with the madness of the pandemic in a live show that you know you will have a great time, how nice you will feel, how free, how alive and how much you will need it to decompress all this channeled pressure and turn into energy of joy! I imagine something like this must have happened at the ancient Roman amphitheater of Plovdiv, Bulgaria (something similar to Herodion) on September 18, 2020. We are talking about the one and only worldwide live event for 2020, where Udo performed in front of 2500 people! So that we are not jealous, the “short giant” took care of it for the rest of us by capturing all this unique atmosphere, since we are talking about a historically important concert, on this double cd but also very soon on dvd!
From the artist’s perspective now: You have released one of the best records of the year and maybe of your career, you have high expectations and you are looking forward to presenting it to the world, but almost a year has passed and time seems to have stopped when covid 19 came into our lives, therefore you miss concerts terribly. What do you do in this case in order to fill the gap after you have experienced this deprivation syndrome? Simple things: you release a live album! Oxymoron; I would disagree, especially when we talk about this “metal heart” that goes by the name Udo! We all know that his strength lies in his great live appearances and of course we all miss one. Hence this album that clearly proves the above condition.
We are talking about a “worthy of the name” live album of survival but also of financial and emotional preservation, which includes a very satisfying two-hour set taken from the whole range of the artist’s discography. Here we find Udo quite upbeat, along with his talented son behind the drums! You can understand the atmosphere from miles away, how amazingly alive and electrifiying it is. I had a lot of fun listening to the album, as it evoked beautiful memories of past times when I was lucky enough to watch him live on stage.
So the character of the album is two-fold. On the one hand, it covers the emotional and artistic gap created by the conditions of the pandemic and on the other hand, we are of course dealing with the commercial side of things. All things considered, this album clearly works as an extra “must” release for the “die hard” fans of U.D.O, but also for those who want to have a decent “best of” or want to be reminded of his past performances. Regardless of the market choice, this album is a “strategic” move that will definitely help the artist “maintain” his forces for bigger plans in the foreseeable future.
Rating: N/A
Editor: Nikos Mathiopoulos
Related Link: U.D.O. – Official Page
