Location: Ljubljana / CUK Kino Šiška / Slovenia
Date: Thursday, May 21, 2015
A solid twenty years have passed since the release of Imaginations From the Other Side, one of the best moments in the three-decade career of power metal’s standard-bearers, the eternal Blind Guardian (even though they themselves outgrew the genre long ago and wrote their own take on it entirely their own way). In the album’s closing track And the Story Ends, the story’s protagonist, a boy, the chosen one and savior, wrestles with whether to take the fateful step through the magic mirror into a parallel world where a royal role awaits him. The Germans decided to continue that story on their tenth studio album, the recently released Beyond the Red Mirror, which proves that Blind Guardian’s wellspring of ideas is nowhere near running dry, and won’t be any time soon. The tour for the new album finally brought the legendary German bards back to the Slovenian capital, where they last played in 2006. Even though we hosted them three times at Metalcamp in between, it felt like an eternity since the last reunion, and this time the crowd threw itself through the red mirror with everything it had.
Right on the announced time, Ljubljana’s symphonic power metallers ShadowIcon took the stage, handpicked as the support act by Blind Guardian themselves, which isn’t even surprising, since the girl and the guys entrusted their debut Empire In Ruins, as well as the current EP Smoke And Mirrors, at least where mastering is concerned, to the Germans’ longtime collaborator Charlie Bauerfiend. The band greeted the already nicely filled hall with If I Was the One from the EP. The rain drove most of the crowd indoors, and it was great to see that the opener wasn’t playing just for themselves and the sound guy. Who, this time, didn’t get the job done: the sound was downright dreadful, the instruments smothered, and Ana Prijatelj’s sweet vocals muffled and dull. Their take on symphonic power metal, full of bombast and baroque pomp, didn’t come across in its best light because of it, despite the effort and a confident performance. For my personal taste, what they offer is just a bit too soft and pretty, though the guitar duo livens up the symphonic frills here and there with some heavier passages, so let me just add that it might not hurt to step away a bit from the worn-out clichés of the genre in the future. That said, ShadowIcon deserve congratulations for a self-assured set, because playing before a band of Blind Guardian’s caliber is no easy task.
Truth be told, though, the hall was only waiting for one thing. The return of the legendary German bards to the capital, something we’d been waiting almost nine years for since their first show here. Blind Guardian will mark their 30th anniversary next year (if we leave out the two years under the name Lucifer’s Heritage), and the old line about fine wine really does apply to them. Although some of us still miss the good old speed metal beginnings, there’s probably nobody who could accuse the band of lacking quality. They can still serve it up in generous portions today, as the opening The Ninth Wave already proved. It may not be as strong an “opener” as Sacred Worlds, but the crowd sang along loudly right from it and earned praise from Hansi’s lips straight away. Well, since I mentioned the old speed metal beginnings, the Germans reminded us of them themselves with the breakneck Banish From Sanctuary and confirmed they’re in top, maybe even career-best form. With Hansi at the helm, who dazzled with incredible vocal acrobatics for the entire two hours, in the calm, quiet moments as much as in those most epic choruses that gave you goosebumps. There were plenty of such moments from start to finish, the first one right at the beginning with the epic Nightfall, and from there Blind Guardian swept us off to Oz in a whirlwind with an excellent selection of new material that fits nicely into the setlist, along with older classics that put the throats of the extremely fired-up crowd through the wringer. The band noticed, and their great mood was noticeable too, since the smiles crept onto their faces more than once. They served up the old The Last Candle superbly, the acoustic pair Miracle machine/Skalds And Shadows turned out beautifully, and to close the first part came probably the peak of the show: first an excellently executed classic, Lord of the Rings, then the more than ten-minute epic ode to Cassandra’s prophecy of the fall of Troy, And Then There Was Silence. In it Blind Guardian really show all their skills in the best light, because this epic spectacle is full of unexpected twists, complex touches and moments so good that it’s without a doubt among the best things ever created in music, rivaled only by, say, Symphony X’s The Odyssey and Hallowed By Thy Name. They faded out into immortality with Valhalla in the first encore and The Bard’s Song – In the Forest in the second, which, with the feverish crowd singing at the top of its lungs, raised the roof of Kino Šiška, as did the closing Mirror Mirror, so Blind Guardian had no choice but to gift Šiška the phenomenal Majesty too, and it’s been a long, long time since a band here gave the crowd three encores, and after a solid two hours the goodbye was a sweet one. Until next time, when we meet the immortal bards again on a rainy night, and by the fire they pull new immortal tales out of their rich treasure chest.
author: Rok Klemše
photos: Nina Grad
Setlist:
1. The Ninth Wave
2. Banish From Sanctuary
3. Nigthfall
4. Fly
5. Tanelorn (Into the Void)
6. Prophecies
7. The Last Candle
8. Miracle Machine
9. Skalds And Shadows
10. Lord of the Rings
11. And Then There Was Silence
— encore 1 —
12. War of Wrath/Into the Storm
13. Twilight of the Gods
14. Valhalla
— encore 2 —
15. Wheel of Time
16. The Bard’s Song – In the Forest
17. Mirror Mirror
— encore 3 —
18. Majesty
