Avantasia - The Flying Opera - Around The World In 20 Days - Live (2011) - An insightful documentary and historical testament - 95% (25/06/11)

"Avantasia" is a very ambitious project that was never meant to be a live band or to play any concerts at all. But thanks to commercial success, faith in their quality, a lot of passion and force, many discussions and complicated plans and a lot of administrative and organizational hurdles that had been passed, "Avantasia" finally became a live act and played some unique concerts all over the world. All those events and struggles as well as conceptual backgrounds and many fresh impressions can be found in the very well done band documentary. In more than one hour, this documentary shows us how ambitious, sympathetic and down to earth all those heroes of rock and metal music happen to be. We know more about Jorn Lande's funny Viking imitations, the warm hearted beauty Amanda Somerville, the joyful rock legend Bob Catley, the diversified talent Sascha Paeth and of course the funny entertainer and Avantasia mastermind Tobias Sammet to only name the most impressive characters. The whole thing has much more than only a project status and feels like a real big band where a bunch of good friends play together. I have rarely seen an as insightful and authentic band documentary and I would say that this little movie is the most impressive part and represents the heart and soul of this release.

Of course, there is much more to discover on this very well made package that also features beautiful booklets with great photos, many details and amazing impressions. The live shows feature songs recorded at Wacken Open in Germany in front of 150,000 fans or so and at the Masters of Rock Festival in the Czech Republic that features some more intimate footages. Every musician does his very best during the shows. Jorn Lande has an impressive voice that gives me permanent goose bumps. Bob Catley has an elegant aura like an old and wise show master. Andre Matos has a crystal clear voice and is completely into his songs. The diversified female vocals by the rather shy but sympathetic Cloudy Yang and the more emotional Amanda Somervile are as impressive as the great and energetic drumming by the technically diversified Felix Bohnke or the appearance of the power metal legend Kai Hansen. The other guests and musicians are maybe less extrovert personalities but they do a very solid job in the background. Musically, many songs work even better than on the studio records. The ballads "Inside" and "Farewell" are sung along by thousands of enthusiastic fans and have a very impressive atmosphere. "Lost in space" and "I don't believe in your love" have much more drive than the studio versions. Songs like "Another angel down" or "Promised land" hit very hard and are a great change of style next to many longer and epic tracks that are sometimes a bit overloaded and less easy to digest like the live version of "The scarecrow" that is though still interesting as its piano middle part varies a lot from the original studio version. The detailed band presentation during the medley of "Sign of the cross" and "The seven angels" are quite funny and interesting but stretch the song to over seventeen minutes which is a little bit too much. Especially the audio version without the visual aspects has a couple of lengths and I really suggest you to watch the DVD than only listen to the music. But all in all, the musical quality is still great, diversified and filled with passion.

Normally, there would be no negative point concerning this record at all. The set list is great, the concerts kick ass and the documentary is one of the best ones of its kind. But I have to criticize the band and their management that they were able to easily organize concert around the whole world in only a couple of days but that it took almost three endless years before this package was released. The time has gone on and there is no live material from recent shows featuring songs of the last two records "The wicked symphony" and "Angel of Babylon" on the package and the documentary only features a few little details but doesn't explain the continuation and end of the story, experience and journey of Avantasia. As they have waited for so long to release this package, they could have let us wait a few months more and include more recent material and some bonus content. This is the only reason why I took of a few points from the final rating. But in the end this package is a definite must have for any fan of metal music because there is nothing comparable in the world and the Avantasia live project is a unique experience in music history. You will see many famous musicians and get a closer look at the music business, the spirit of Avantasia and the whole phenomenon of the big live concerts. As you can see there are enough reasons to get this package at all costs. It may also be the testament of Avantasia as we still don’t know if there may be further releases. If this was the end of Avantasia it would have been a perfect farewell gift but I somehow feel and hope that Tobias Sammet has enough energy and creativity left in his mind to carry his groundbreaking project on.