Bold but not bald (Anvil! The Story of Anvil (DVD))

Member Name: dangaroo

Product:	Anvil! The Story of Anvil (DVD)
Date:	11/10/09 (34 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Some funny sketches and situations

Disadvantages: Seems a bit staged at times to me

I'd long been meaning to watch this documentary about Anvil, if you search Anvil on dooyoo, you'll see that the only review of any of their music is my review of their Metal on Metal album that I wrote up last year. Despite, realising that Anvil's later albums were not particularly well known, I had no idea of the financial and success situation Anvil found themselves in this decade.

I had presumed that their success in the early 80s had propelled them to some sort of comfortable life and whilst they could hardly be described as destitute, their pitiful performances in front of a handful of people including their one loyal fan who can drink beer through his nose and the menial jobs that they undertake would prove otherwise.

After 12 albums, the band seek to resurrect their career to the former glory days and with the help of a disorganised and somewhat insane Italian woman organise a European tour which turns out to be a complete disaster, with barely any fans turning up, a club refusing to pay and the band unable to get to their own concert due to not having bought train tickets. The tour is such a mess, that it looks unreal - there's a concert in a small rock club in Prague, where there just so happens to be a British lawyer watching - the tour brings both the most laughs and some of the more intense scenes, it's for this reason that I think it's mostly staged and for commercial purposes.

It is fairly entertaining but the band really are quite pathetic at times and I'm not really sure whether I'd class it as a "comedy", unless you really get your kicks out of watching other's misfortune and misplaced self-belief. It's not bad but definitely not an award winning documentary.

Summary: Enjoyable rockumentary