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Events and Reports - Helloween - Live With Rage, Amager Bio, Copenhagen - 9th December, 2003
A night of double world-class Power Metal action? Well that was at least my high hopes and it was up to two classical German Power Metal bands to fulfil them.
An "all you can eat" pizza experience mixed with two gigantic jugs of beer and an intense Metal discussion resulted in a rather late arrival for the RevelationZ team at Amager Bio.
Rage
I entered the not exactly huge hall to see Rage perform War Of Worlds from their latest album Soundchaser. First impression being the energy filled music, the fantastic powerful sound and sadly just a handful of people involving themselves in the concert. This didn't put any hold on the band that seemed pleased if just a couple of people had showed up, Peavy Wagner nevertheless managed to get some interaction going; anyway, it was the music that came out the big winner, thanks to a band that has the ability to perform as a solid unity and still display strong individualistic capabilities.
Great Old Ones being another great Soundchaser track, worked very well live, especially thanks its catchy chorus and Smolski's incredible solo.
A rather surprising, but also interesting, part in the less than one-hour show was an extensive guitar and drum solo. If there was any that didn't know just how good a guitarist Victor Smolski is, they found out. His one-man show was electrifying, technical, innovative and over the top brilliant.
Mike Terrana's solo (being a bit long) also had a very special style, a "madman went nuts in progressive drum workshop" sort of scenario.
With the medley Sent By The Devil/Firestorm we were offered two very powerful cuts that just became too short, two whole versions would have fitted in much better, but hey I have never been a fan of medleys. Down is clearly one of the better songs from the newer Rage period, high grooving bass lines, intense drums and heavy rhythm guitar riffs was nailed down in supreme fashion making way for one of the evenings highlights.
Set This World On Fire once again saw Victor displaying great diverse techniques, the classic Don't Fear The Winter was delivered in a very hard version showing raw powerful drumming, before Higher Than The Sky ended the show with lots of melodic energy and a brilliant chorus that sparked more life into the crowd. Rage did very well indeed and lived up to my hopes. As always a longer set would have made it even better.
Set list:
War Of Worlds
Great Old Ones
Medley: Sent By The Devil/Firestorm
Down
Guitar Solo
Soundchaser
Set This World On Fire
Drum Solo
Don't Fear The Winter
Higher Than The Sky
Helloween
I had chosen not to read anything from the other Helloween shows, I wanted to be surprised and that I was. Starlight opened the show and rocked pretty tight but also succeeded in being a bit muddy; a more melodic track would have worked a lot better in my opinion.
The song that was to follow did inject some serious energy and satisfaction into the crowd, a completely magical execution of the 13-minute classic Keeper Of The Seven Keys, with incorporated sing a long passages. New man in the band drummer Stefan Schwarzmann laid down some very precise and tight playing on this challenging piece and did a fine job overall.
The band roamed the stage with lots of both professionalism and humour, Andi Deris had some cool and quite funny comments and vocally he performed with high class. His vocals in Hey Lord! were very strong, a cool grooving track, but what about the real killers from Better Than Raw? :) The set was in no short amount of old classics, Eagle Fly Free, Future World and Dr. Stein were very firmly fed to the hungry audience and the positive and very melodic style of those songs worked brilliantly. Michael Weikath looked very relaxed while playing these classic lead passages and very driving riff's.
The quality of the sound was about the same level as Rage, a bit more blurred but all in all very good and finely weighed. The ballad Forever And One (Neverland) worked very nicely as a breather and Deris' melodic vocals only added to the impression of a very successful live version. If I Could Fly is one of my favourite Helloween songs and this slow song was giving just the right amount of depth and hardness. Things got very dark and atmospheric with the first song from their latest Rabbit Don't Come Easy (review) in Back Against The Wall. Not exactly the track I thought or mostly hoped they would have picked but it kicked major ass and came out very aggressive, Weikath's solo screaming with energy and Markus Grosskopf's dark bass-work being excellent. Unfortunately only one more song from that album was selected in Sun 4 The World, and again a most excellent version. New guitarist Sascha Gerstner started the song with some cool atmospheric guitar passages and later joined in with some speedy rhythm passages, a great song that did very well live.
The guitar interactions between Weikath and Gerstner really flourished like they had played with each other for 10 years or so, their split solo's came out very dynamic and their many synchronous lead parts gave the show and extra level of excitement.
As the last track we got an amazing deliverance of How Many Tears, nicely packed with huge intensity and the stunning and ultra heavy mid-section break was one of the shows biggest moments, but as with Rage the concert was over way too soon.
To sum up this was a highly surprising set, vigorously delivered by a band that sparkled with positive vibes, which made the way for a very memorable concert.
Set List:
Starlight
Keeper Of The Seven Keys
Future World
Eagle Fly Free
Hey Lord!
Forever And One (Neverland)
Dr. Stein
If I Could Fly
Back Against The Wall
Power
Sun For The World
How Many Tears
| You can click most pictures for a bigger view
The RevelationZ team and one very happy reader
Healthy enthusiasm or pure madness?
All pictures taken by Nina | Written by Tommy
Monday, December 22, 2003 |
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RevelationZ Comments
| Comment by Nina - RevelationZ (Anonymous) - Monday, December 22, 2003 | Yeah, the concert was great! I had only seen Helloween once before, and that was at Wacken where I was pretty far from the stage, and honestly not quite sober, hehe!
So this was a great chance to see the band more up close and they surely did a great job! Personal highlights include If I Could Fly, Sun For The World, and of course the classic Keeper Of The Seven Keys, though I was in the photopit during that song. All in all this was a great experience!
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| Comment by Flaske (Anonymous) - Friday, December 26, 2003 | Min far er på et af billederne ;) (nej, det er ikke Andi)
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| Comment by Carsten Olsen (Anonymous) - Monday, January 5, 2004 | Would have loved some of the older stuff from Rage. And a pity that so few went crazy with this band on stage, they are great Victor must be one of the greatest guitarist i the world.
Nice concert from Helloween too But Rage was the best band
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| Comment by lolo (Anonymous) - Saturday, December 2, 2006 | que onda
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| Comment by koko (Anonymous) - Saturday, December 2, 2006 | hellowenn is very good for the e.u.
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