Twisted Sister

Copenhell - 2014

Text: Tobias Nilsson Photo: Lunah Lauridsen

Twisted Sister, who apparently are still hungry, provided the main course on Thursday evening, and the question on everybody’s mind was; what were they going to serve?

“Alright Copenhell, if you are ready to kick some ass, we are Twisted Sister!”
- Dee Snider (vocals)


To put some power in us, AC/DC’s song It’s A Long Way To The Top (If You Wanna Rock ‘N’ Roll) was played as a fitting intro for the show where some aging rockers were or were not going to rock our world.
Twice before have Metalmoments witnessed these men on stage, once a disaster and once pretty darn convincing, so it wasn’t possible to predict anything about what was coming, but for some reason I wasn’t very hopeful. Still, it could be fun, so why not give it a go?
The show itself kicked off on a classical note with the title track for the now 30 year old album Stay Hungry, and for the most part this was the album that was played this night, with a few choice cuts from other albums thrown in for good measure – it was quite literally a best of setlist for connoisseur and noob alike!
A setlist can do much, but it can’t hold a show on its own. Luckily for Twisted Sister, the sound team had once again pulled it together and created a very good sonic landscape for the band to unfold their classic tracks in, and last but in no way least, the band members themselves were full of fire and ready to wreak havoc at the festival!

“Stand up unless you’re in the handicap section!”
- Snider (vocals)


Sure, it was easy to spot who had kept in shape since the initial break-up as Snider entered the stage topless and displayed a pale yet incredibly ripped body for someone of his age, whereas the rest of the guys were a bit more loose around the waistline, and Snider certainly was the liveliest of the bunch as he ran, jumped, crawled and rolled around through the songs, but the rest of the guys weren’t exactly moping around either. Especially Jay Jay French was happy to take centre stage and rock out on the catwalk, but both Mark ‘The Animal’ Mendoza and Eddie ‘Fingers’ Ojeda heavily nodded their heads and looked tough playing their respective instruments, and Anthony Jude ‘A.J.’ Pero even got to throw in a drum solo which he kept tastefully short so the band managed to get enough air to continue without us being pushed into boredom.
French also shared some thoughts about the music business, where he was unimpressed with the shake ‘n’ bake stardom of people going into shows like Idols and Voice and listening to them saying how long they fought for this, wrapping it up with saying that if they’ll still be headlining festivals in front of tens of thousands of fans after 40 years, then they’ll have his respect.

“I believe the last time we were here was in -86, sorry it’s taken so long!”
- Snider (vocals)


Respect was given to the crowd in plenty though, as we often and gladly shared our voices with the band – after a superb addition in We’re Not Gonna Take It Snider commented that he could hear we had been practicing, but as it got even wilder in I Wanna Rock he shortly paused the concert to say; “Hey, that’s my job! Who do I look like, Vince Neil?”
The boot to his colleague, who apparently at some point as dabbled in lip-synching during live-shows, produced a good grin from the audience, and then the show quickly commenced, without diminished participation on the audience’s side however.
Personally, I was afraid that with playing their mega-hit We’re Not Gonna Take It as early as mid-set, the band might lose steam later on or that the audience would disappear, having heard what they wanted the most, but I’m glad to say I was proven wrong on both accounts. The audience stayed hungry and stayed loud, and Twisted Sister kept an exceptional amount of steam going into the wee hours of the night and produced several more of their note-worthy songs. Heck, they even got a well-played cover in there as they played Motörhead’s Born To Raise Hell in honour of Lemmy Kilmister, again to loud cheers of the fans.

Twisted Sister also proved the old wives-tale about metalheads being selfish pricks wrong, as in the glory of the end of their show they decided to share the praise they were getting by pulling a slightly embarrassed but clearly happy festival leader up on the stage for his own set of applause, and earlier on Mendoza was seen offering a hand to a camera-man that had been pulled up on the stage as well, making sure he got down safe and sound before playing on.
Even though I knew Twisted Sister could perform well, they still completely pulled the rug from under my feet with this show – this was far above and beyond anything I could have hoped for in my wildest dreams and my initial hesitation about having them as a headliner was duly put to shame – they rocked, and more importantly, it came from the heart! Yes, they certainly made this reporter hungry for more, and easily qualified amongst the top four shows of the festival!

Setlist:

It’s A Long Way To The Top (If You Wanna Rock ‘N’ Roll) (AC/DC song)
Stay Hungry
The Kids Are Back
Shoot ‘Em Down
The Beast
Don’t Let Me Down
You Can’t Stop Rock ‘N’ Roll
Captain Howdy
Street Justice
We’re Not Gonna Take It
The Price
I Believe In Rock ‘N’ Roll
Burn In Hell
Solo (Pero)
I Wanna Rock
Born To Raise Hell (Motörhead cover)
The Fire Still Burns
S.M.F.

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