A blast from the past this one; 20-odd years ago I was enjoying Helloween's rousing Power Metal on albums such as 'Walls Of Jericho' and the two 'Keeper Of The Seven Keys' albums. Admittedly, they had fallen off my radar in recent years, though it must be said that this band has influenced countless others and have maintained a solid output over the course of their career.
Opening tonight with their seminal "Halloween" from the first 'Keeper...' album was a terrific way to begin the show, its 13 minutes of pure unadulterated twin guitar lead and operatic vocal metal got the crowd fired up and suitably in the mood. The band too seemed to be enjoying themselves on this their first visit to our shores and were hamming it up for all they were worth. Whilst obviously serious about their songcraft and playing, Helloween have never been afraid to laugh with and at themselves as the occasional odd diversion albums such as 'Pink Bubbles Go Ape' and 'Rabbit Don't Come Easy' (don't the titles just say it all?!) can attest.
Singer Andi Deris was in fine voice, both on his recorded material and the earlier tracks, with one of the latter, the anthemic "March Of Time", being a firm favourite for me and, it seemed, most of the crowd.
After an extremely enjoyable 45 mins, however, things unfortunately turned sour as yours truly was felled by a headache out of the blue of the kind of jackhammer-in-the-skull variety that renders one practically incapable of remaining upright. I certainly don't suggest that the music was the culprit as I have never in my life had music of any kind cause a headache, but much as I tried to shake it off and enjoy the remainder of the show, it was too strong and I had to take my leave. So much as the gig was for me, at this point this review becomes truncated. Let me say though, on an "up" note, that even after only 45 mins I felt I had got my money's worth and I hope to have the opportunity to catch this enjoyable outfit the next time they grace us with their presence.
(Bad quality phone camera photos, I know, but better than nothing.)
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