Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Gamma Ray
Label: Ear Music Records
Release date: 25.09.2015
Running time: 82:04
Rating: 4/5
This year marks 25 years since the debut of the legendary German power metallers Gamma Ray from Hamburg! So earMusic Records decided to reissue absolutely all of their albums, one a month. And right in the middle of the studio album reissues, a special release has snuck in. It’s a live document that came out on VHS in December 1990 and on DVD in 2003, but has never been available on an audio format (be it vinyl or CD) until now. It’s called »Heading for the East«. Gamma Ray recorded it at the label’s request during their hugely successful tour at the time, which took in four shows in Japan, in the cities of Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya. This is a reissue of a historic Gamma Ray concert that, until now, was only available on a VHS tape originally released in 1990! A must-have for any true power metal fan!
The release of the debut “Heading For Tomorrow” in February 1990 turned out to be an unexpected commercial success. That opened the door for the band to hit the road on a world tour just a few months after the album came out. Metalheads in Asia, and especially in Japan, were going particularly wild over the debut, and Gamma Ray picked both consecutive shows in Tokyo for the recording, where a fired-up crowd of 3,000 Japanese metal maniacs greeted the band every single night. Needless to say, the band sold out both shows.
It’s not usual in the music world for a band to put out a live document right after the studio debut. Kai Hansen was already a well-known name on the metal scene at the time, thanks to his work with Helloween throughout the eighties. Even though the band was touring the studio debut, most of the crowd was hungry to hear the Helloween classics from the first three studio albums. So the live set covered most of the material from the debut “Heading For Tomorrow”, but it also featured the Helloween smashers ‘I Want Out’, the phenomenal ‘Ride The Sky’ (with Kai Hansen on lead vocals) and ‘Save Us’, plus a little surprise in the form of »Free Time«. That one was something vocalist Ralf Scheppers (now in Primal Fear) used to sing with his previous band Tyran Pace. The highlight of this live document is the closing track: a performance of the metal epic Heading For Tomorrow, which, loaded up with a hefty dose of improvised jams, is stretched out to a whopping 24 minutes!
The reissue of “Heading For The East” was remastered by Eike Freese (Dark Age, Deep Purple). The sound is clearly improved. Crystal clear, hellishly alive. In the quiet passages of the title track, you can hear a pin drop on the concert stage. The documentary footage and interviews with the band members have naturally been cut from the original recording, so the audio release is almost 10 minutes shorter than the VHS tape. Even so, it still adds up to a bit more than 80 minutes of playing time, which means »Heading For The East« had to come out on two CDs. »Heading For The East« is the only officially released live document of Gamma Ray with Ralf Scheppers on vocals, and also with drummer Uli Kusch, who jumped in from Holy Moses right before the world tour began and later went on to Sinner, Helloween and Masterplan. This is a document of exceptional performing power. Exceptional execution. Exceptional energy. The band’s lineup at the time was hungry to prove itself. The band builds up incredible power through the songs, crowned by Ralf Scheppers, the German metal vocal »beast«, delivering a superior performance of extremely high vocal ranges.
Making the pilgrimage to the Far East in those long-gone days was a kind of small victory on the band’s thorny career path. The nineties were taking shape and interest in classic heavy metal, the root of the story of German metal, was dying down. It was buried under other trends of the time that pushed metal toward the extremes of brutality, and then there was the grunge wave. Interest in power metal only came back toward the end of the nineties, when Gamma Ray delivered two albums that are still considered the creative peak of their career. But that’s another story.
Lineup
Ralf Scheppers – vocals
Kai Hansen – guitar, vocals, backing vocals
Dirk Schlächeter – guitar, bass, backing vocals
Uwe Wessel – bass, guitar
Uli Kusch – drums
GUEST MUSICIAN:
Jörn Ellerbrock – keyboards
Production
Peter Ernst
Track list
CD1
1. Intro
2. Lust For Life
3. Heaven Can Wait
4. Space Eater
5. Free Time
6. Who Do You Think You Are?
CD2
1. The Silence
2. Save Us
3. I Want Out
4. Ride The Sky / Hold Your Ground
5. Money
6. Heading For Tomorrow
