I second that. Manowar is a circus, but I used to listen to them a bit in the 80s, and I thoroughly enjoyed them delivering live all their albums in chronological order. No other band would do that obviously. Let them be divas.

I'll make an educated guess, with no inside info whatsoever... Hellfest is a festival, and it's quite tightly run... the changeover between bands is minimal. Manowar are going all-out on this tour. check the videos. stage, props, actors, projectors, etc. I've seen instances where the "gap" between the "special guest" band and them was 90 minutes. Hellfest wouldn't give them 90 mins. they're Manowar, Kings of My way or the highway, and they said no, thanks. they do believe in giving their fans a proper show, and not just a bunch of songs...

not sure what I'd do in their shoes. probably be crystal clear about it before signing the contract and flying out.

just my 2 cents. they're not the kind of people to ask for more money at the last minute though.

The answer is pretty simple: you scale down the show so that the performance can happen. You've signed a contract stating that you'll play, people have come from all over the world to see you play, if you failed to negotiate everything you need to give your full performance in your contract, then you strip those elements out to make the show work. Bailing at the last second is NOT acceptable, IMO.

"We want two trillion Euros, and we want to set up a huge contraption that allows thunder to crack the earth and large-bosomed women (of at least three different hair colors) to emerge from that crack and hail us as the whirlwind of eternal steel that we are."

FESTIVAL GUYS: "No."

"Forget the Euros. We want only the aforementioned contraption, and a huge amount of corn oil in which to slather ourselves."

FESTIVAL GUYS: "No."

"We sold a lot of shirts yesterday. We're out." [cue revving motorcycles]

We're Manowar! We're manly as fuck and ready to do battle!

...so long as the battlefield is too our liking.

Not quite, but close enough

Manowar in "still better than Sabaton" shocker.

Here's Manowar in the year 2002: MANOWAR's Show In Virginia Cancelled Over Band's "Outrageous Demands"

They've always been this way - making demands that club promoters won't meet, and either quitting or being cancelled. Ever wonder why their "world tours" are so patchy and miss so many huge countries/cities? Basically, they've burned a lot of bridges at this point.

Whether you consider them to be demanding the best for their fans or being ridiculous prima donnas is entirely up to you.

Manowar's 80s stuff is fantastic but when you're canceling contemporary shows left and right and haven't offered a solid album since 1992, it really doesn't matter how good you were "back in the day." Nostalgia culture enables modern mediocrity.

What "nostalgia culture" are you talking about? Most metal bands were MUCH better back in the day, that's really just a statement of fact. There are rare exceptions of course (Voivod IMHO).



It does matter when you're comparing Manowar to a band like Sabaton, who has never released anything good and never will. Give credit where it is due. I personally think the Thunder in the Sky EP Manowar did was quite good but largely I agree with you on their post-1992 output. Guitarists in metal bands are hard to replace because they are the backbone of metal songwriting ... a problem someone like Manowar (and Dio TBH) should've recognized.

I'm sure Alter Bridge are super nice guys too but who cares?

What enables mediocrity is those who prop up lousy modern bands and pretend that the metal scene is doing great. In other words, most of this forum. Ignoring the problem doesn't make it go away. I think you were one of the few guys who agreed with me on this point in a previous thread so props to you if so.

^ Metal fanboys are a bunch of wimps and girlies. Musicians are supposed to be "nice" and "humble". If they have demands they're disrespectful to their fans. I recently heard that Halford was a guy whose "ego was out of control". I suppose metal has never been about individuality, it's meditative Gregorian chants.

When I said I listened to 80s Manowar - well, it was mostly 87. I may even play it again. Isn't it great!

Don't get me wrong, it's vastly preferable to be a nice person to deal with, to fans and business associates. Like you said, having high standards (maybe even demands) isn't necessarily un-nice though. As far as I'm concerned, Sabaton can go be nice while working at McDonalds and stop pretending that they are a top-tier metal band. Only by today's pathetic standards can they even fool anyone.

I mean, I'm not afraid to call out mediocrity when I see it but my standards are quite different compared to yours. Hell, I enjoy Primo Victoria and Carolus Rex so there's an instant disqualifier by your metric. Maybe I'm too easily pleased but I find plenty of fantastic new albums on a fairly regular basis. I'd rather enjoy myself listening to bands currently in their prime than a lifetime of eternal disappointment because I can't stop comparing every single traditional metal album I hear to Powerslave.

It's also quite a conundrum when musicians adopt the "good old days were better and everything new sucks" mentality. Like, does that mean you think your own music is mediocre or do you consider it an exception to the rule? I'm not gonna act like my own music is the most revolutionary stuff out there but I'm proud of everything I've released and I'd likely still enjoy it even if I hadn't been directly involved.

Who could consider them "to be demanding the best for their fans" or "having high standards" after such a fiasco?
Fans converging from all Europe (the world?), left high and dry on the very day of the show? The Hellfest has already managed a Manowar show before (2009 !! when the fest was way smaller), and some Maiden, Kiss and Rammstein as well, for the record. This is not a third zone fest that can't handle big bands and scenes / props.
Summing this up to a "band's high standards problem" cannot be serious at this point. I laughed so hard when i read the band's communiqué… "we want to give our fans the best" yeah sure your fans got the best lol

I meant that fans extend plain civility to the person in general - everyone supposedly has to be "nice". Satyr has been super-arrogant to me, as well as super-nice - what matters is that he's a consummate professional. He's never cancelled, mind you - played shabby venues, played with a broken leg... But that's why I listen to him, not Manowar.

I don't understand why it is so strange Manowar had demands. First they're mega-weird - for example, once they asked that girls jump onstage, and then began complaining these were not real women to their taste... Second, stars of any genre have demands - Jennifer Lopez has cancelled shows because she didn't have a dressing room filled with a particular type of lilac or whatever... Here we come to the accusations that Manowar are divas - all they asked were technical specifications to be met. The place they rocked for five hours in Bulgaria was some village soaked in the smell of kebabs. The stage wasn't super-big, but they could play loud... seems to me it's all they need to satiate their grandiosity.
Question is though, when were Manowar not prima-donnas? Is this some kind of a shock revelation?
Another metal storm in a cup...

Sabaton? I only need a brief glance at them and their fans. All the "patriots" and other simpletons here (the redneck type) have joined a "Sabaton army".

Well then, you've got nothing to worry about if this current scene meets your expectations. You'll never be disappointed.



If their prime sucks then I wouldn't.



Well, I think traditional (power/heavy) metal is pretty much dead creatively but thankfully some other genres put out good stuff if you really look for it. I lurk in the Heavy/Power rec thread on this board and hear nothing that's good to my ears.



Thankfully that's not my mentality but nice straw man you have there. Did you not read above where I praised modern Voivod?

I check out new bands all the time. I was enjoying a new band I just discovered called Cremator yesterday. Reminds me a bit of Destiny's End, Attacker, or Helstar's "Multiples of Black" album.



Same here.

My apologies for that assumption, I have run into several older musicians who do proudly boast that exact mentality so it's easy for me to slip there. My bad. I'll have to try that Cremator album out myself, I'm always up for recommendations!

not sure if it's been mentioned already, but Manowar posted a bare-bones explanation on their website:

http://manowar.com/regarding-hellfest-cancellation/

I don't see it. I see the bare-bones part, but not the explanation part.

"Our performance at Hellfest scheduled for June 21, 2019, was NOT cancelled by the band; it was cancelled by the Hellfest organizers [...] who chose not to honor their contractual obligations." ?

Which is as vague as possible. What contractual obligations? This could mean anything, from "they refused to pay us" to "we asked for white towels but they gave us gray ones".

In any case, information from inside the VIP/press area says that basically the problem came up with the soundcheck and sound levels. Apparently(?) they wanted to do it at an impossible time (while another band was playing) and at an impossible (forbidden by law) level (or was this about the actual concert, can't recall). Or something like that. They were offered alternatives (another day and time for the soundcheck), they refused. And they were cancelled. You can say that typically it was Hellfest that cancelled them because they did not give them what they wanted. But the sense of everyone in the press area and backstage was that Manowar were being impossible assholes who wanted special treatment compared to all other bands and did not give any room to the organizers who tried everything they could to find a compromise.

Of course, I don't know what was in the contracts exactly but I doubt the quite experienced by now Hellfest organizers had let clauses in that conflicted with the law (decibel levels) or allowing for open soundchecks while another fest is playing.

I didn't check this thread at the time to respond to this, but I just wanna throw out there that Gargoyle's 93 song, ten and a half hour set while they were still in the peak of their career mercilessly laughs in the face of Manowar's piddly 5 hour set two decades past their prime.

It'll be interesting to see if the lawsuit (more like lolsuit) gets online so we can read the actual reasons why Manowar are suing the festival. Joey is still being vague about the details, which is not really surprising.

I've never understood why anyone would listen to Manowar when Manilla Road and Virgin Steele play the style of metal they supposedly invented far better than they ever did.

There are several factual errors in the above post.

Not really. Sure they use similar themes, VS and ManOwar especially. But ManOwar has a different vibe than either of them. IMO.

Though VS and ManOwaR are similar in that they've both been totally taken over by an important member of the band who has completely lost their mind and writes nothing piles of badly produced gunk that for some reason uses a shitty, totally-obvious drum machine.

Well fuck, now I want a hear what a DeFeis/DeMaio collaboration project would sound like...

In 2019? It would be FUCKING AWFUL. I think they hate each other, too, it is rumoured that Demaio punched Defeis in the '80s.

Geoff Tate would be an interesting addition to that project as well.

I don't hear any Manowar in MR's music.

The Hellfest dispute should be adjudicated on the battlefield, in true Manowar fashion.

so true. I'm surprised no one noticed how similar "don't say goodbye (tonight)" is to "each dawn I die". or "come on and love me" to "march for revenge"...

Check out the contrast in those titles and which ones are more effeminate.

Not sure why "effeminate" matters... and the VS albums most people praise are their more epic stuff in the 90s most of the time. They're not that much like Manowar though, aside from aesthetics and maybe slight similarities in the vocals before DeFeis began to lose it in the '00s.

One reason it matters is because people don't listen to Manowar for effeninate music so how could something so effeminate be a valid competitor?

It's the same reason Manowar isn't a good competitor for Sarah McLachlan.

check your irony detector I was exaggerating on TrollingWizard's words... VS are poofs, and, unlike manowar, treat their fans like s**t. I'd rather listen to Boney M.

What did they do to treat their fans like shit?