Schaffer on "Alive At Athens" DVD

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This was posted by Jon Schaffer on the official Iced Earth website a while ago. I don't have the DVD, and I'm not sure if I will buy it anytime soon. Instead, I was curious to hear some people's opinions on Schaffer's position.

I personally think it's quite a cool statement. The guy is convinced he can't give the fans what they deserve, but on the other hand, he knows what they want. Of course, you could say that he's not seeking legal actions because he probably gets royalties from the DVD sales, but to be honest, I don't think he's going to make much money out of it. I think if he was in it for the money, he wouldn't warn the fans about how poor (in his opinion) the DVD is, but instead do serious advertising on the site. I also think that if he was in it for the money, he'd release a hell of a lot more albums than right now, in shorter intervals.

Say what you want about him. He might be a real arsehole with an ego as big as a blue whale, but at least he cares for his fans and he is honest.

But then, that may just be the idealistic me.  -_-
 
Fair play to him.  At least some musicians can stand up and be counted for when they think their fans are being ripped off -_-
 
He's still an asshole hahahaha. I'm sorry but he is. I appreciate what he does for his fans and how seriously he takes what he does, props to him and this indeed was a good message... but he is still a prick.
 
This topic very old, but the DVD is still available.

Here my point of view:
This DVD is worth buying! It's excellent and nothing of Schaffer's comments come near the truth. He only had a bad feeling because of his relation with that label, and because people will find out that the venue wasn't as huge as most people must have thought it was. The sound is great, the viewing is great.

I found this piece of review (the one by Pete Pardo) which sums it up pretty well:

(source: http://www.seaoftranquility.org/reviews ... nt&id=4354 ):
The world has been waiting for an Iced Earth concert film for some time, so, against the wishes of Jon Schaffer, Century Media has released the video portion of the beloved Alive in Athens three disc set from their landmark 1999 show in Greece. We all know how much Schaffer is a perfectionist, but after viewing this near three hour DVD, it's evident that Jon needs to take a chill pill, as this is one awesome document of the Iced Earth live show in the late 90's. Sure, some of the camera work is a little spotty, and I'm sure that many who have worshipped the live album for all these years will be a tad disappointed to know that this show was not filmed in front of a huge stadium or arena sized crowd. That always seemed to be the impression that most people had, and the legend is pretty much destroyed here as you see the band actually played in front of a small crowd of maybe 2000 or so in a very small venue, The Rodon, in Athens, Greece. Honestly though, after a few songs, it matters not, as it's evident that the band were so at the top of their game that night, delivering so many of their classic songs, over 30 to be exact (only 29 are included here on the DVD), making for one killer set for Iced Earth fanatics. The song list is a virtual treasure chest of selections from the Matt Barlow era, who quite frankly always was one hell of a singer as well as frontman. Expect all the favorites, like "Dark Saga", "Travel in Stygian", "I Died For You", "Dante's Inferno", "Melancholy (Holy Martyr)", "Last December", "Burning Times", and so on, and so on. Schaffer and Larry Tarnowski's guitar sound is SO crunchy here, you'd think these guys invented the term, making this one of the better sounding DVD's you will hear all year.

The word out of the Iced Earth camp is that the band is planning a live DVD in the near future featuring their current incarnation with Tim "Ripper" Owens on vocals. That will be a fine addition to Alive in Athens, as fans will then have both eras of the band documented for a lifetime of viewing.
 
Forostar said:
This topic very old, but the DVD is still available.

Here my point of view:
This DVD is worth buying! It's excellent and nothing of Schaffer's comments come near the truth. He only had a bad feeling because of his relation with that label, and because people will find out that the venue wasn't as huge as most people must have thought it was. The sound is great, the viewing is great.

I found this piece of review (the one by Pete Pardo) which sums it up pretty well:

(source: http://www.seaoftranquility.org/reviews ... nt&id=4354 ):
The world has been waiting for an Iced Earth concert film for some time, so, against the wishes of Jon Schaffer, Century Media has released the video portion of the beloved Alive in Athens three disc set from their landmark 1999 show in Greece. We all know how much Schaffer is a perfectionist, but after viewing this near three hour DVD, it's evident that Jon needs to take a chill pill, as this is one awesome document of the Iced Earth live show in the late 90's. Sure, some of the camera work is a little spotty, and I'm sure that many who have worshipped the live album for all these years will be a tad disappointed to know that this show was not filmed in front of a huge stadium or arena sized crowd. That always seemed to be the impression that most people had, and the legend is pretty much destroyed here as you see the band actually played in front of a small crowd of maybe 2000 or so in a very small venue, The Rodon, in Athens, Greece. Honestly though, after a few songs, it matters not, as it's evident that the band were so at the top of their game that night, delivering so many of their classic songs, over 30 to be exact (only 29 are included here on the DVD), making for one killer set for Iced Earth fanatics. The song list is a virtual treasure chest of selections from the Matt Barlow era, who quite frankly always was one hell of a singer as well as frontman. Expect all the favorites, like "Dark Saga", "Travel in Stygian", "I Died For You", "Dante's Inferno", "Melancholy (Holy Martyr)", "Last December", "Burning Times", and so on, and so on. Schaffer and Larry Tarnowski's guitar sound is SO crunchy here, you'd think these guys invented the term, making this one of the better sounding DVD's you will hear all year.

The word out of the Iced Earth camp is that the band is planning a live DVD in the near future featuring their current incarnation with Tim "Ripper" Owens on vocals. That will be a fine addition to Alive in Athens, as fans will then have both eras of the band documented for a lifetime of viewing.
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To be honest, I really can't see any problems with the Alive in Athens DVD at all.  The setlist and sound are phenomenal, and it's really Schaffer's ego that makes him whine about only having 4 cameras and a small venue.  I'd much prefer that to the 3-cuts-a-second on most Maiden DVDs.
 
Thanks Forostar! I've passed this DVD a few times at the store because of Schaffer's post, because as much as I wanted to get it, I wasn't going to get a shitty product. Good to know it's very well worth it.
 
YW Onhell! I thought it was worth to mention it! The venue is small and the stage in AiA's booklet huge, so it might be quite a surprise. But Raven's post and the review I posted say enough!  :ok:
 
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