Artist:  Bonfire
   Title: The Rauber
   Label: Transistor Picture / LZ Records

Over the past few years the Rock Opera/Concept album has become a popular seller with the Hard Rock and Metal fans, and another band to join the fold are Germany’s Bonfire.

Claus Lessman and Hans Zimmer were approached by Pierre Walter Politz to write the music for his Rock Opera based upon the work of Friedrich Schiller's ‘Die Rauber’.

The pair at first a bit cautious but they did come up with the goods and released the album The Rauber with the music from the show, which I thoroughly enjoined. 

The show itself was staged in the band's hometown of Ingolstadt and all 20 shows were sold out, such is the success of the show and more shows have already been scheduled for December.

The show has been captured for prosperity on this new DVD release.  This is the entire show featuring the actors and the band themselves, plus videos of every song from the show performed by the band, plus a "behind the scenes" section.  Again the band have taken it upon themselves to interview cast and the sometimes forgotten back stage crew.

The band have also done a new studio recording and video for ‘You Make Me Feel’.

This is a great video package, at nearly five hours in length this is definitely aimed at the German market as there aren’t any subtitles for the show itself, although this would have been nice to include for none German speaking fans.  Although overall this captures a great show and the inclusion of the band on stage as well as the actors is great, with some of them singing the songs written by Lessman and Zimmer.

For me Bonfire have always been overshadowed by The Scorpions, which is a shame because they have always produced top quality Hard Rock album after album.  Hopefully this DVD will put the record straight as Bonfire deserve more worldwide recognition than they have received over the years.

Even though there were no subtitles and I’m no 'A' Level German graduate, I still watched the entire show which says something.  This is a great addition to any Bonfire collection and I will be watching it again if only to improve what little German I know!

DVD 1:

Bells Of Freedom
The Good Die Young
The Oath
Blut Und Tod
Do You Still Love Me
Lass Die Toten Schlafen
Drum solo
Hip Hip Hooray (Instrumental)
Hip Hip Hooray
Bells Of Freedom (Instrumental)
Love Don't Lie
Refugee Of Fate
Let Me Be Your Water (Acoustic)
Father's Reign
Black Night
Let Me Be Your Water 
Hip Hip Hooray (Encore)
DVD 2:

Bells Of Freedom
The Good Die Young
Blut Und Todt
Do You Still Love Me
Hip Hip Hooray
Love Don't Lie
Refugee Of Fate
Black Night
Let Me Be Your Water

Behind The Scenes
The Rauber Choir
Brand New Studio Recording / Video Of "You Make Me Feel"
  

                

 

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