TWISTED SISTER live were always pretty convincing (depending on yer buy-in), as is evidenced by this five DVD box set capturing shows from ’82, ’82, ’01, ’03 and ’09. The first ’82 set is a show billed as the band’s farewell to the New York bars, and it’s the coolest thing of the pile (love the crowd shots – metal in transition), although the daylight Wacken set, also ’82, is hands-down the legendary show here, Dee winning over the UK crowd with ease. New York Steel ’01 is cool in that the band leaves the crazy hooker clothes at home, going with basic black street clothes. No wigs either, so all but Dee are in short hair, hinting at their (quite colourful) day jobs. Pretty interesting, and sort of a loosey-goosey performance, or more so, sounding that way because the axes are less powerful, less distorted, allowing for Mendoza’s fluid, old school bass lines to show through. Most refreshing video here, but the least headbanging from an audio perspective. The Wacken reunion has the most extras, much of the package in fact offering interviews and bits and pieces from this band who loves to talk about themselves. But man, big egos aside, it’s all pretty interesting because they are introspective about life, about business, they hold your interest, and it’s expertly shot, poignant views woven together with vintage footage. The Christmas set… man, what a treat. Vegas got more bells, balls and whistles than we did in Toronto, I’ll tell ya, and I’d take this sort of pure loud fun over Trans-Siberian any day, Dee singing and acting his heart out, the band captured bold and powerful, all coming together for the seminal moment of all of these discs, ‘Shoot ‘Em Down’ 30 years past, Twisted’s perfect Kiss song of many good and bad ones. I mean, in total, you essentially see the band winning in five different environments, through time, different stages of different sizes, different reasons, exploding onto the world stage in ‘82 already seasoned, to seasonal in ‘09 and impossibly, in some ways, at their best and most brash. Also included, tucked into a fifth DVD case is a reprint of the first letter to the TS fan club, a big pin featuring the glammy first band logo, one of them pressed tin logo badges from the Christmas experience and a repro laminate. Ha ha, it’s very much fitting that these seminal metal workers turn in a full day’s work, literally, this monster pack weighing in at more than eight hours of metal crafted specifically just simple enough to project like metal magic on live stages where any extra subtleties are more often than not lost.