Tankard is one of the criminally overlooked German Thrash bands here in America. The fact is that these guys know how to rock harder and thrash faster than a good portion of the American thrash bands of the 80’s. I will admit I am more bias towards German thrash than Bay Area, but who can argue with a band who sings primarily about beer, kicking ass all the while? And these guys have their craft down to a science. It’s not brain surgery, but at least they are consistently kicking ass right and left.

The main portion of the DVD joins the Tankard boys onstage in Germany where they thrash through a set of the classics and new material alike. The club is a decent size, not millions of people, but it looks like everyone there is packed in like sardines. You’ve got everything here, from "The Morning After" to "Beermuda", "Need Money for Beer" and "Slipping From Reality", with two dozen tracks in all. The band is full of energy, more than likely beer-fueled. The problem is that a few of the tracks suffer in accuracy to their album counterparts (most noticeably "Die With a Beer In Your Hand"), but that hardly is a downside given the performance. These guys are thrashing out, having a great time, and keeping the audience in the palms of their hands the entire time. The best part about the whole dvd is the fans get up on stage (there is no barrier at the club) and stand there headbanging and thrashing with the band until Gerre pushes them back into the audience. The whole band looks like they are just having a blast, even after a good 20+ years, as the whole band is smiling almost the whole time and Gerre is doing goofy dances across the stage for the whole show.

The rest of disc one contains the standards. You’ve got the video clips for The Morning After, Space Beer, Minds on the Moon, and something in German that I don’t particularly feel like typing out. You also have a photo gallery and an interview that is useless for non-german speaking folks.

Disc two contains all of the backstage and random tour footage that has become a staple of dvd releases. This is always my favorite part of any dvd release, because it gives you insight into the band offstage. The whole package is around 3 or 4 hours worth of Tankard, so it is definitely worth the money to spend on one of the best thrash bands in the world today.

Reviewed by Zach Palmer