Reviewed: March, 2023
Released: 2003, Eagle Vision
Rating: 4/5
Reviewer: JP
Back in March of 2020 I was laid-off because of the pandemic and I spent my free time writing a series of 50 DVD reviews called the Covideo Chronicles. It was fun and productive! What comes around goes around and in February 2023 I have been laid off again! Over the past three years I have accumulated another stack of about 25 DVDs to review. Additionally, it has long been a personal goal of mine, and Metal-Rules.com, to review every Hard Rock and Heavy Metal DVD on the planet. Over the years we have reviewed hundreds of stand-alone DVD’s, more than almost every other Metal webzine. So instead of sulking and/or wasting my time I’m going to review as many as I can in the month of February. It’s cold outside here in Canada so it beats going outside and/or looking for work! Feel free to enjoy all the reviews in this feature.
It seems that when Zakk Wylde does something is not by halves. When he founded his Black Label Society he churned out four albums in four years. There was a considerable buzz about his band and it is no surprise that a home video was released not too long after. Metal is not a spelling bee or a grammar rodeo so they choose the title of BOOZED, BROOZED & BROKEN-BONED as a title.
This DVD is a very good first effort. It is a live concert and has a generous number of interesting bonus features to make it worth-while. There is a two-page booklet with the basic credits. The cover is a bit odd. While the live concert inside is an indoor gig at Harpo’s (a club) in Detroit, the cover image is a vast outdoor audience. I suspect the photo is from an Ozzy gig to be honest. False advertising?
The concert was filmed on Sept 14, 2002 on the 1919 ETERNAL Tour. It is your typical hot ‘n greasy BLS gig. The place is packed, the stage is small and everyone is firing all cylinders. Trujillo does his weird spider-walk thing, despite the tiny stage and Zakk is his usual beer-drinking caveman self. It’s a fierce gig and the cameras are right in their face. I saw BLS just recently in front of 3000 people and I don’t want to say they seemed tired, but this gig seemed to have a youthful energy, after all it was 20 years ago! Since then Zakk has been warned by professionals to make lifestyle changes (or else) and accordingly he has stepped off the gas…just a little. As an old-school Metalhead I still consider BLS a ‘new’ band and this is a great show near the height of their power.
The bonus features are plentiful and interesting, making this a really good value for a DVD. There is an old guitar lesson. I say old because, Zakk is still a bit skinnier and doesn’t even have a beard yet. He goes step by step through some stuff. I’m not a guitarist but he doesn’t seem to be the best teacher. He kind of mumbles and stumbles his way through. Despite that it is a cool feature for guitarists.
There is a 15-minute interview, just Zakk and a camera. It’s very casual. No real interview format per se, just a quick visual clip that introduces a theme. They just wind Zakk up, give me a couple of beers and let him talk. He goes all over the place but it is fun.
There is also a video for ‘Stillborn’, a seven-minute live clip of the band in Japan, (blurry handheld stuff) and a three-minute home movie of Zakk playing guitar with his three-year-old kid. It just keeps coming, there is a 16-minute acoustic performance, something called ‘National Anthem, (which didn’t seem to work, but I assume it is supposed to be Zakk doing the American National Anthem somewhere, probably at a ball game of some sort) and last of all but not least a segment called ‘Stupid Shit’. As you might guess it is drunken in-the-studio footage. It is not as amusing as you might think…all 17 minutes of it….the guys wearing costumes, doing a mock interview, yelling, swearing, throwing empty beer bottles around (which degenerates into thrashing the studio) and generally being drunk idiots.
The length and quality of these bonus features and a killer concert all combine to make BOOZED, BROOZED & BROKEN-BONED everything you could ever want from a BLS DVD.
Line Up:
Nick Catanese Guitar
Zakk Wylde Vocals, Guitar
Rob Trujillo-Bass
Craig Nunenmacher Drums
Track Listing:
1. Demise of Sanity
2. Graveyard Disciples
3. Bleed for Me
4. 13 Years of Grief
5. Stronger than Death
6. Genocide Junkies
7. Spoke in the Wheel
8. Born to Lose
9. World of Trouble
10. All for You
11. Superterrorizer
12. Berserkers
Bonus features:
Interview
Videos
Guitar lesson
live clips
blacklabelsociety.com/home/
