In March 1990, the German Thrash legends, ‘Kreator’, headlined the first and last international GDR-Thrash festival in the Werner Seelenbinder-Halle in East Berlin in front of approximately 7,000 fans (other bands on the day were ‘Sabbat (UK)’, ‘Coroner’ and ‘Tankard’) and this was released as ‘Doomsday News III’ by Noise Records (audio only). Older fans of the band may have had the original VHS video ‘Live In East Berlin’. The first part of this DVD is the re-release of this original video re-edited.
As for the DVD ‘Live in East Berlin’, it is great to see some old tracks that are not normally played nowadays, ‘Some Pain Will Last’ and ‘Bringer of Torture’ and ‘Awakening of the Gods’ are definitely three excellent numbers. It is also interesting to see Mille (vocals/guitar) and Ventor (drums) as younger fella’s! In some parts the editing could have been better, you can definitely see that this has been transferred from analogue equipment, the shots of the performance are very good and close up, but there are some strange moments when the camera changes position, the film seems to have a little “glitch”. Having said that, the film has been cleaned up well, the picture quality is crystal clear and once again, the camera angles are spot on.
The sound has been beefed up suitably; I certainly cannot remember my VHS copy being this loud! Andy Sneap has certainly done a good job with the sound mixing. Be warned, there is a drum solo! Not seen much nowadays, but quite nice to see for nostalgia.
The bands classic’s are here from their legendary first four albums, ‘Extreme Aggression’, ‘Toxic Trace’, ‘Pleasure to Kill’, ‘Flag of Hate’, ‘Betrayer’ and ‘Tormentor’. It is truly a great live show put on by an enthusiastic band and worth buying for this part of the package alone.
However, as an additional bonus, the entire gig is also on a CD that is included in this release package. The original ‘Doomsday News III’ release only had four ‘Kreator’ tracks on it, this CD has the full 15 tracks as performed on the night.
It was certainly a dream gig then, as it is now almost 18 years later when you look at the show that was put on.
The DVD also features ‘The Past And The Now’, a documentary, filmed and directed by Niels Folta. This is an interesting retrospective from fans that were actually at the gig in 1990.
It may be difficult to understand from a generation that has such easy access to music for free with the internet and without having to track it down through mailing letters and cash around the world, but it was actually really hard for the East Germans to get a hold of their metal fix from behind the iron curtain (even more so than us folks in Western Europe). Some albums were costing fans up to 100 German Marks (£40) in today’s money for a single tape or record, when wages were not much higher than this. The documentary goes on to point out the DIY attitude of the fans and radio stations that would play an entire side of an LP one day, then the other side the next day to give fans a chance to record it on their tape decks. It is a very interesting and good retrospective and should make the current easy to access metal market stop and think about things a bit more.
An additional feature on the DVD is the original director's cut of the ‘Kreator’ Horror Movie ‘Hallucinative Comas’. Again, a re-edited version of the original video released in 1991. I personally never had this one, but in reality it is the videos from the ‘Coma of Souls’ album. Namely, ‘People of the Lie’, ‘Twisted Urges’, ‘Coma of Souls’ and ‘Terrorzone’. The videos are great, I am not sure about the strange links in between with ‘Dr Wagner’, weird to say the least, if not comical in some places. I thought this would be the horror movie section, but they are more so in the music videos. Not by today’s standards, but some aspects were too much for the censors back in 1991. However, like mentioned earlier, the videos are top class.
One the whole, for fans who might already have their worn out VHS tapes and for fans who have never seen this footage before, it is a worthwhile package for ‘Kreator’ fans. Even the less die-hard fan would enjoy this package. It is difficult to say what the official release will have in the way of liner notes as the promo copy I got did not have many notes other than in the tray card. This aside, it’s a great visual of a top class band.
http://www.kreator-terrorzone.de
http://www.myspace.com/officialkreator
http://www.spv.de
