And the ground shook and started to pound…

Last night I’ve seen Manowar live in Bucharest, Romania.

I am a Manowar fan since highschool, waiting to see them live and be part of their show. I’ve waited this for the last 15 years, hoping they’ll get here. Last night, it happened: Manowar was here, I was there to see them, next to a lot of people of all ages…

I was very nervous since I have waited this for a long time, it was their first time in Romania, a lot of fans waited to see them…

It was a strange feeling, something that I have never felt since a long time, people dressed with t-shirts painted with Manowar, skulls, women and weird daemons, boots, spikes, all these people happy to be there. I was hearing around me people saying hey, Metallica was here, I haven’t been there, Maiden was here, I missed it, but, man, THIS IS MANOWAR, I WOULDN’T MISS IT FOR THE WORLD!!

My thoughts exactly!

Metallica was here, Maiden, Saxon, Helloween, I wasn’t there. Even Vai, I missed that too. But I really wanted to go to see Manowar!

I planned this with Michelle, my band mate and long time school friend, he purchased the tickets to section A, right in front of the stage.

So we headed to Bucharest. Unfortunately, I realized I don’t have anyone of my old t-shirts with skulls, none, fuck, none! The meanest t-shirt I had it was one begging “Please give beer…”. Pathetic…Michelle had one with what he called a dog head with fangs. Later he came back to this and pretended it was some kind of a monster…right. We just couldn’t go to Manowar like this, so we started to look for a “mean” t-shirt. I knew a shop where they used to sell such shirts, I remember I wanted to buy one with Megadeth a couple of weeks ago, so I headed there, the shop was not there anymore…I called Costin, the lead singer, he pointed me to the mall. Right, we went there and we realized these days, “mean t-shirts” come also on pink and orange. Fuck, no!

So we got to Bucharest, reached the location, but we weren’t sure where exactly it was so while at a stop, I lowered the window to ask the guy to my left where’s the location exactly. I looked at them: nice car, “corporate” look for the driver, lady next to him dressed sharp, with large sunglasses, again “corporate” look…hmm… ok, let’s give it a try: where’s the…the guy looks at me and asks me: to Manowar you mean? I would have liked to see my facial expression, probably my jaw was somewhere on the floor…yes…we go there too!

To make a long story short, we bought t-shirts from the band stand, honestly not much to choose from, but hey, any tshirt that says Manowar will do…

At 9 PM we’ve heard the classic “Ladies and gentlemen, from the United States of America, please hail: MANOWAR!” Fuck, yeaaah! The stage exploded in lights and sound and the show started…

I must tell you I’ve felt like never before, everything was happening right there in front of my eyes, at 15 meters, Eric Adams, Joey DeMaio, Karl Logan and Donny Hamzik (as a temporary replacement for Scott Columbus).

Man, these guys rule! I know they play a role, I am not stupid, but I’ve felt great! Classic hits started to flow, it was damn loud, my langs were pounding from drum kicks and everything was there like it should be. Eric Adams is, as I have always thought, a great frontman, a great performer, he entered the role and played it the way he should.

Classic, “trademarked” high screams and low “Ha!” from his throat, gesture and facial expression, everything was great.

So we reached the 3rd song, if I well remember, Kings of metal! A classic…

In the middle of the song, right on a drum beat, everything shut down. We, the audience, not realizing what it was, continued to sing. Eric Adams was hitting the mic with his palm, the mic was dead. We realized something was wrong, they left the stage: the power was down! Fuck!

The power failure lasted like 20 minutes, moment when Joey came on stage and walking like an emperor started to question us: Did Metallica come here?! Yeaaah!! Did they have problems with not having enough power? Nooo!Maiden was here? Yeaah!Did they have problems with not having enough power? Nooo!Motorhead was here? Yeaah!(2 days ago) Again, they didn’t have power problems. But we did, because we were the loudest band int he world!!!

Yeah, OK, you fixed it well!

What happened was that a generator just exploded shutting everything down.

So they started again the same song, 3-4 lyrics and powww!!! Fuck! Come on! Not again!!

Third’s time was fine, but it was obvious they were pissed off, Eric Adams lost his nerve, his joy to sing. The song was flawless, but something was missing, they were singing like waiting for something to happen. But it didn’t! Everything went fine!

Then, he started to sing Heart of steel! Only himself and the piano. Man, I must tell you at that moment, I had a feeling I have never felt before: I was part of a wall of sound, everybody was singing, note by note, word by word. I knew every word of the song, so did the rest of the crowd. Eric Adams was happy, you could see it in his eyes, he stopped singing at a moment because the whole crowd was singing, you could see on his face that he feels good being on stage in such moments…

I can tell you at that moment I had a strange feeling, I felt (don’t laugh or smile) tears in my eyes, it was something unbelievable, effectively a wall of sound, every single voice in the audience was singing…you need to be there to understand…

For a band that was never to Romania that was huge, that was wonderful.

At one moment, Joey DeMaio remained on stage and…started to speak Romanian. Not that classic I love you Romania, but like 15 minutes of speaking Romanian! Damn, Romanian is not an easy language! I know they were telling him in his ears what to say, but this guy pronounced it word by word! For 15 minutes!

I remember at one moment a guy in front of me screamed to the stage something like, My man, you are Romanian, man!! and everybody started to laugh there. It was mad, this guy actually worked for the show here, he made his homework! Looking on the back of my tshirt, he probably had the same speech in Finland, Norway and Germany! Now, that’s a dare to learn the speech in many languages that you don’t know, for 15 minutes! I know he is Italian and probably Romanian comes easier on him, if he actually speaks Italian, but that was an effort I appreciated!

As other observations, they gave a guitar to a guy they picked from the audience and asked them to play on stage with them they played together a song, then they signed the guitar, had a couple of sexist moments inviting girls on stage and behind the stage, but OK, it’s part of the show, I understand that.

I’ve got home at 3AM, tired but happy, today my throat hurts when I speak, but I am really happy I was there, for me it meant a lot, I have waited this for 15 years and now I was there. I wish they would have played more, more hits, cutting those moments with the guitar given to the guy and the ladies, and just play a few songs more, but hey, a show’s a show!

I can tell you now I feel happy and content…

I have seen Manowar live! Now I will be waiting for Satriani, I guess…

Later edit: I have found a couple of videos from yesterday night:

and Heart of steel

PS: 2 days ago Santana played in the same festival and 3 days ago, Motorhead

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