During the many years of their glorious career, TWISTED SISTER - more often than not - proved themselves able to transcend their 'hair' Metal image and craft impressively powerful, exhilarating Rock'n'Roll, never hesitating to infuse their celebratory dismissal of parental guidance with NEW YORK DOLLS' rough attitude and metallic crunch. This unyielding stick-to-the-basics, street-tough element in their music, stubbornly eminent even in times when the band's gruesome over-exposure was ill-advisedly saturating radio and MTV, is the 'key' factor behind both their credibility's surprisingly high lasting value and their songs' graceful ageing.
Amped-up glam Rock underpinned by Punk ethics continues to define TWISTED SISTER's  modus vivendi to this day, as evidenced by this live DVD companion to last year's positively raucous collection of Christmas standards' makeovers. Recorded at the Starland Ballroom in New Jersey, spartanly shot and almost bootleg-harsh sounding, the concert documented here captures the notorious New Yorkers in all their raw, rowdy, fist-pumping essence, as they storm through a set-list equally split between hi-NRG renditions of some of their classic anthems and humorously blasphemous caroling straight from the aforementioned A Twisted Christmas release.
Much more cohesive as an ensemble than they look on paper, the tunes selected all share the same fundamental reliance on combining garage-y immediacy and shock-rocking theatricality, gelling together perfectly under DEE SNIDER's commanding persona, an epitome of larger-than-life flamboyance and imposing character. Even in Rock's modern, over-competitive world, where countless variations of on-stage gimmickry are used in a rabid hunting for attention and recognizability, TWISTED SISTER's frontman remains peerless in his charismatic manipulation of a crowd's need to get carried away in  communal ecstasy.

Anybody here who's got little kids at home, just remember... You are scarring them for life when you're disappointing the motherfuckers, OK?, DEE asks his audience with the workmanlike passion of an experienced stand-up comedian, not more than a minute before his band breaks into I Wanna Rock's thunderous roar. You don't have to give them everything in the world, but the one thing they really want, make it happen!!! Or... This happens!, he concludes, disapprovingly pointing at a tall, amazingly fit middle-aged man wearing fake blond hair, heavy make-up, and looking like an old but resilient transvestite whore, Snider is indicating ...himself!

Still unwilling to outgrow basing both their music and its performance on addressing frustrated teenagers and expressing adolescent angst, even when the majority of their fan-base consists of nostalgia trippers on their middle to late thirties.

Still able to obliterate any given venue in the name of guitar-heavy rock, even when armed with no more than the stripped down, dry sound of this holiday gig.
 
Still the fire burns.