Anvil: The Story of Anvil

This week i finally watched the documentary, "Anvil: The Story of Anvil"..sooooo..what did Old Man Robert Reid Hawley think? Well i saw lots of parallels...many moons ago in the 80s Anvil was a rising metal band, their videos were a staple of "The Power Hour" on MuchMusic back in the day and they used to show the track "Metal on Metal" alot which had footage of the band in front of a monsterous crowd in Japan and i lived in Japan for over half a year and if any place has a case of the rock n rolls it is definitly Japan..kids knew who the old school bands were and CD stores were to die for! Only place i have ever seen ALL the Night Ranger CDs...
As a Passage boy i bought "Metal on Metal" and "Forged in Fire" on cassette (Remember those?) and even had "Metal on Metal" on my cassette of K-Tel's "Masters of Metal Volume's I & II!!" Anyways then Anvil just well...disappeared...where did they go? Turned out these Canadian metal legends were working full time jobs working for a catering company and i believe as a carpenter...i was like...WTF?!?!?! Life had dealt the members of Anvil a raw deal while their metal counterparts like Metallica, Slayer and the others that they influenced were still selling out arenas and making platnum albums...
Many many people wrote Anvil off...hell people didnt even remember who Anvil was! I can see the point...many people wrote me off...that loser in high school that couldn't graduate, who did graduate but people laughed and laughed, didnt make it into the radio business (Kinda glad i didn't) and i worked many many crappy jobs that well...yeah they sucked...dishwasher, bingo attendant, cleaner, pizza driver, stock boy, gas jockey, video store clerk...what i do now... the list went on and on and on..other people float through life like pieces of crap, but yet i somehow managed to get my degree...go teach internationally and now once next week comes and with a little bit of lady luck riding on my shoulders...maybe just maybe i will complete the pieces of the puzzle.
Some wrote me off as a has-been or as i overheard one person say about me, "A never-was" but im still trying, im really trying all the time to make it, realize my dream..my destiny? Well im putting together the puzzle and i know i have found all the missing parts...the 11 herbs and spices maybe not...but i know im onto the secret recipe for Old Man Robb's success...or maybe success....so when i saw this documentary, i realized that sometimes life does suck..watching Anvil go on a horrifying European tour which features a "Monsters of Rock" in Romania which draws 127 people...where other bands would have quit, they have perserved, watching record labels reject demos, one show where only some 5 people show up at a club...but the band doesn't give up...
The climax showing the band's triumpant return to Japan is heartwarming...even to a non-metalheads (Your poor people...listening to your Salad Dion...sigh....) it would be hard not to be moved in the slightest watching the band return to their former glory, even the sighting of a "NOVA" sign in the background during their time in Japan couldn't take the smile off my face...but what it is all about? People never giving up their dream, doing what they love when others laugh at them...having the last laugh is always a good thing.