Artist: Axel Rudi Pell  
   Title: Live Over Europe
   Label: SPV Records

When it comes to outstanding world guitarists my list would include the likes of Vai, Malmsteen, Schenker, Satriani, Halen, Young, Nugent, Mars ... and of course Pell.  The legends of guitar orientated rock one and all, and all listed as influences among the young guitar heroes of today as all living legends.

One of those larger than life legends is Germany’s own Axel Rudi Pell who returns with his ‘Live Over Europe’ DVD to once again cement the fact that this great can still produce the goods in the live arena, as shown with this live recording of the bands superb show at the 2007 Rock Hard Festival.

The band led by Pell consists of the outstanding drumming of Mike Terrana, Ferdy Doerberg on keys, Volker Krawczak on bass, and completing the line up the superb vocal talent that is Johnny Gioeli.

This two disc DVD not only features the bands full 75 minutes performance at the Rock Hard Festival 2007, but also includes an abundance of bonus material, these being highlights taken from the bands performances at the 2004 Sweden Rocks festival, the 2005 Bang Your Head festival, the Z7 Prattein festival in Switzerland back in 2005, as well as songs from the bands appearances at Bloodstock 2006, WOA in 2005, 2006 and Zeche Bvochum in 2006 and the Graspop Metal Meeting in 2005.  If that isn’t enough to wet the appetite then nothing will!

The bands show at the Rock Hard Festival on disc one is truly magnificent and captures the bands live performance well.  It includes some truly magical Pell moments like the outstanding ‘Strong As A Rock’, the sublime melodic metal of ‘Tear Down The Walls’, with the quite outstanding drumming of Terrana filling in between songs and a metal assault of a solo courtesy of the drummer from Hell.

It's song like ‘Mystica’ which is taken from the band latest release ‘Mystica’ that provide an excellent platform for Giollis to show his vocal prowess together with Pell’s immaculate virtuoso guitar playing.

Outright song off the DVD for me has to be the superb ‘Rock The Nation’.  A real true blue slice of Melodic Metal that epitomizes the whole ARP sound, with Gioellis superb vocals towering above the thunderous drums of Terrana and the impeccable riff building of Pell himself.

The price of the DVD is worth it just for this one as far as I’m concerned, but those of you wanting more should check out the second disc with the official bootleg sections from Axels own private vaults.  Material from the like of the Sweden Rocks show with ‘Tear Down The Walls’, the rather damp Bang Your Head Festival version of ‘Fool You’ and the atmospherics of ‘The Masquerade Ball/ Casbah at the Z7 Prattein in Switzerland.   Plus the acoustic version of the Kiss classic ‘Love Gun’ is just superb and worth a look just to see Terrana sitting playing the bongos like the last of the Mohicans and the acoustic version of ‘Oceans of Time’ which again is simply superb and lends itself to the acoustic version very well.

The entire DVD package is just superb and well worth the pocket money of any Axel Rudi Pell fan and also those who believe that Melodic Metal still lives.

DVD 1
The complete Rock Hard Festival Show:

1 Fly To The Moon
2 Strong As A Rock
3 The Masquerade Ball / Casbah
4 Drumsolo
5 Tear Down The Walls
6 Mystica
7 Rock The Nation
8 The Temple Of The King
9 Fool Fool
10 Call Her Princess

DVD 2
Bonus "Official Bootleg DVD": Highlights from the bands performances at Sölvesborg (Sweden) - June 12, 2004 (Sweden Rock Festival), Balingen (Germany) - June 24, 2005 (Bang Your Head Festival); Z7, Pratteln (Switzerland) - June 6, 2005; Zeche, Bochum (Germany) - April 26, 2004; Assembly Rooms, Derby (UK) - September 29, 2006 (Bloodstock Festival), Wacken (Germany) - August 6, 2005 (Wacken Open Air), Zeche, Bochum (Germany) - September 30, 2006, Zeche, Bochum (Germany) - October 1, 2006, Dessel (Belgium) - June 25, 2005 (Graspop Metal Meeting).

All content copyright of The Mayfair Mall Zine unless otherwise stated.