Twisted Sister - Rock Carnival Lakewood 2016

Twisted Sister brought their outrageous brand of heavy metal to the Rock Carnival at FirstEnergy Park in Lakewood, New Jersey, on September 18, 2016. The performance came during the band's final tour, making the appearance especially significant for fans who knew they were watching one of the last chapters of Twisted Sister's career.

The band was in the middle of its Forty and Fuck It farewell tour, celebrating four decades of music while preparing to call it quits as a touring act. Dee Snider, Jay Jay French, Eddie Ojeda, Mark Mendoza, and drummer Mike Portnoy were delivering the final performances of a band that had become synonymous with outrageous stage clothes, massive guitar riffs, and an unmistakable sense of humor.

The Lakewood set opened with “What You Don't Know (Sure Can Hurt You),” immediately followed by “The Kids Are Back” and “Stay Hungry.” Those opening songs established the tone perfectly, mixing the band's early material with the songs that made Twisted Sister one of the biggest hard-rock acts of the 1980s.

“Destroyer,” “You Can't Stop Rock 'n' Roll,” and “Under the Blade” kept the set moving through the band's classic catalog. Dee Snider remained one of the great frontmen in heavy metal, commanding the stage with the theatrical presence that had always been central to Twisted Sister's appeal.

The middle of the performance featured “We're Not Gonna Take It,” which predictably became one of the biggest audience-participation moments of the entire festival. The song's simple, explosive chorus made it practically impossible for a huge outdoor crowd not to join in.

“Shoot 'Em Down,” “The Fire Still Burns,” “The Price,” and “Burn in Hell” followed, giving longtime fans plenty of deeper material alongside the familiar hits. The band wasn't treating the farewell tour as an excuse to simply run through the obvious songs; the set still had plenty of heavy material for dedicated fans.

The finale was a relentless run of favorites. “I Wanna Rock” brought another enormous sing-along, while “Under the Blade” and “S.M.F.” helped close the performance with the attitude that had defined Twisted Sister since its early club days.

The Lakewood appearance also had an emotional quality because the audience knew the clock was running out. Twisted Sister had spent four decades building a reputation as one of the most entertaining live bands in hard rock, and the Forty and Fuck It tour was designed as a genuine goodbye rather than another temporary farewell.

That made the Rock Carnival performance more than a nostalgia show. Dee Snider and the band still played with the aggression and theatricality that had made them famous, while the audience responded as if every song might be the last time they would ever hear it performed by Twisted Sister.

For fans at FirstEnergy Park, the September 18 concert was a chance to say goodbye to one of metal's great characters. With “We're Not Gonna Take It,” “I Wanna Rock,” “The Price,” and a catalog full of hard-driving classics, Twisted Sister's Rock Carnival appearance captured exactly what made the band special: loud guitars, larger-than-life personalities, humor, and an audience that was never going to take it quietly.