Location: Vienna (Austria), Planet Music
Concert date: 07.11.2003
Attendance: 800
Ticket price: €26.00
Finally! Helloween closer to home on tour, a mere 450km away. Rage as the support act were the main reason I bit my lip and brushed aside the problems that come with an empty pocket: “I’ll survive, I always have, I’ll scrape through this month too, no panic!” Pleasures are just hard to resist! I’ll never regret the decision to head off to Vienna, because we witnessed a proper heavy metal rhapsody!
First up on stage were Vivian. Austrians who, judging by their looks, were no spring chickens, and who clearly have quite a bit of musical mileage behind them. Progressive metallers. You can feel the influence of the German classic metal school, since massive guitar riffing makes up a big part of the band’s musical expression. The guitars are paired with a melodic leveling-out courtesy of the keyboards, which play the role of a whole orchestra in one, so somewhat like on a Symphony X record. Unfortunately, Vivian didn’t manage to win me over in their half-hour set. There’s too much clichéd imitation in them, and the closing song put me off the band completely, an unbelievably brazen copy of Believe by Savatage. It’s incredible how shamelessly and disrespectfully the newcomers of today’s rock scene in general steal. The chance that Vivian somehow haven’t heard of Savatage yet is out, because their bassist was wearing a Savatage shirt on stage.
The next hole is that there are still many things that need to be improved and built upon. It’s incredible how choppy some of the passages sound. E.g. a track that’s built around some kind of massive doom-style imagery suddenly switches into the galloping, speed-fueled riding rhythm of Iron Maiden’s The Trooper. With no transition whatsoever. There’s a lot of work to be done, and above all they need to find their own backbone, dear boys. Vivian are undoubtedly very good musicians, but they lack musical imagination. The guys don’t have a recognizable style of their own. Then a third remark. Only the singer made an effort to keep in contact with the crowd. The singer is excellent, with a full, high, clean voice, and I liked his stage presence too. Despite the fact that the guys had very little room on stage, the way the musicians were arranged was surprising. The guitarist who handled all the solos was squeezed into a corner between the monitors, so you could barely see him, while the rhythm guitarist stood right beside the singer. So, front and center. But the rhythm guitarist didn’t take one step left or right, and instead, with a cigarette butt in his mouth, just kept staring at the floor while he riffed. All the others put on the same show, except for the singer, though the bassist did show a few signs of life too. So, wooden dolls on stage. But take me with a grain of salt, because the Austrian audience was downright thrilled. The guys are no doubt regulars at Planet Music, and they obviously have a loyal fan base showing up, since the whole hall shook a few times in a show of support. Lyrics in English. The sound was solid, the riffing drowned out the solo breaks slightly a few times, but on the whole it was a successful performance.
The first “rageman” to join us in the hall was Mike Terrana, who had quite a job climbing in behind his enormous drums. Dec didn’t hesitate and started hammering out Orgy Of Destruction on the spot. Through the fog, Peavey’s head soon appeared, and the rhythm section was thus perfect. The last to bounce onto the stage was the short-pants-wearing Victor Smlolski in a hockey jersey with the number 15 of the Belarusian club “Metalurg Magnetogorsk”. After Peavey’s navigation with the word “Excellent!”, the guys immediately moved on to War Of Worlds from the latest album “Soundchaser”. The trio was in exceptional spirits, and Peavey and Victor immediately traded a few daredevil poses on stage. The next bomb was Great Old Ones. Excellent communication. Rage won the crowd over to their side in an instant. The seasoned fox Peavey obviously knows the right levers to fire up an audience. Then again, with that kind of bombardment, there’s hardly any need for special effort. The Judas Priest- or Accept-style stacked Soundchaser was the first peak of the show. Vampiric riffing, white-hot rhythm “drive”, the crowd breathed along with the band through the verses of the chorus. The sound was phenomenal and Peavey’s vocal performance flawless. The singer/bassist went at it uncompromisingly and with everything he had. At moments I really got the feeling that three Soundchasers were chasing each other around the stage, because such musical perfection, such a complete “timing” of seamless transitions, combined with just the right dose of spontaneity and wild cut-loose abandon, is hard to imagine until you experience it. As if they were hybrid crosses between machine and man. How Victor, who was the center of attention during the title track, transformed the atmosphere through the heartfelt instrumental middle section. Rage prepared a little treat. They slipped a mini medley made up of two songs into the set list. It started with Sent By The Devil (“Black In Mind”, 1994). The butcher-shop riffing stopped at the point where the song should have flowed into the solo, Rage reined in the horses for a moment, and then Peavey announced another sensation, this time from the album “The Missing Link” (1993), namely the song Firestorm, which closed the medley. But the crowd became active again with Down (“Unity”, 2002). After that Peavey and Mike left the stage and Victor remained alone. He opened his solo spot with the instrumental Lunatic (“Welcome To The Other Side”, 2001). Victor once again said goodbye to all his picks and shredded through supersonic “tapping” with his right hand, which for the most part sat almost in the same spot as the left. On the guitar neck. At the same time he spiced it all up with impressive tremolo-bar hanging and by coaxing out squealing guitar sounds. A spot that a musician of Smolski’s type simply needs. I bet Victor didn’t put together two solos on the tour built on the same or even roughly the same basic motifs. Rationality switched off! Victor wrapped up the solo with the acoustic motif of Set This Wolrd On Fire. And the trio was chopping away together again for a while, while the crowd below the stage happily tumbled about. Now Mike Terrana got his few minutes too. Of course, his solo was much shorter this time than on last year’s co-headlining tour with Primal Fear, when Mike got to entertain the crowd for a full 20 minutes. Of course the acrobat climbed all over his drum fortress again, twirled his sticks and juggled them as if he had countless arms instead of just two. He clattered out part of the solo spot standing up. Thanks to Mike’s merciless rocketing from all sides, quite a few drumsticks met their unfortunate fate. They just frayed apart on the strikes against the cymbal edges. Mike Terrana racked up a hefty pile of nice wooden splinters that night, let’s say kindling for the barbecue. He probably also invented a new version of toothpicks. After the show he generously gave these fresh splinters away to the crowd. In short, a full measure of fun! So Mike “the rowdy” Terrana, bathing in his own sweat, thoroughly electrified the atmosphere of the hall. We surely witnessed the performance of one of the loudest drummers on planet Earth. Drumming from outer space!
The lineup was complete on stage again. It took us back to the end of the eighties with their hit Don’t Fear The Winter (“Perfect Man”, 1989). Of course there’s a direct link between the albums “Perfect Man” and “Soundchaser”. Remember the line in Good Old Ones “…so called perfect man…”? Well, after it ended, Peavey once more called on the crowd to join in for Higher Than The Sky (“End Of All Days”, 1996). A real tornado to finish. The white-hot rendition of the punchy song lifted the air to a higher level once again. People helped Peavey through the verses.
The taste was of course spoiled by the same old Slovenian metal drunks who always push into the front rows from the back at the end, solely to catch some pick or drumstick, maybe to strip the musicians naked. Hey, is that really all you came to the show for? Victor, though, sewed up the inconsolable, since he didn’t throw a single pick into the crowd. Of course there were quite a few Slovenians in the audience. It was Saturday. They were once again among the loudest, which showed especially during Helloween’s set.
Rage? 50 minutes of perfect intensity that didn’t let up for a moment. Everything was sawed off with a supersonic run-up, aggressive, furious. Damn it, guys, do a headliner tour already. A band you simply can’t get enough of seeing and hearing live. Absolute perfection in every respect! When Victor and I were talking after the show and I told him where we came from, he asked without hesitation: “Do you speak Russian?” Stunned, I nodded, then I made use of my Serbo-Croatian and the conversation flowed on to the headliner tour. Victor insisted that a few Rage shows are announced for January (they’re already confirmed on the band’s official website, and all of them, again, insanely far from Slovenia). Rage are supposed to record a DVD for that purpose, because next year is the band’s 30th anniversary. And for September next year, Victor insisted, a proper headliner tour by the band follows. Mike later even explained that they had tried to make a “break through” and come to Slovenia with Helloween. Can you imagine that shock? I really wouldn’t wish them playing in the existing holes around the country of Slovenia, but it would be downright fantastic if someone got them to some summer festival in Slovenia. Mike is a real phenomenon. When he left backstage he put on a “Security Guard” shirt and mingled with the crowd. And what a kind and down-to-earth guy he is. He devoted himself to every fan, and in the hall he helped the “merchandiser” pack up the shirts and the rest of the fetish stuff into boxes and carry the goods to the tour buses.
Well, let’s go back two hours, into the hell of the sweltering Saturday action in the Planet Music hall. It was the third time I’d met Helloween face to face. The first, like many of you, was in Trieste when they supported Iron Maiden (06.05.1998), the second on Easter Monday 16.04.2001 in Stuttgart. My pre-show expectations were similar to those before the recent Iron Maiden show. I told myself: “Ah, they’ll play half the set list from the latest album’s tracks and then a few from the post Master Of The Rings (1994) era and just a hint of something from the eighties!” I was completely thrown. Helloween stormed onto the stage with an intro that sounded like an outro, the kind bands usually use for the classic fade out at the end of a show. No way, it can’t be true. Starlight? The main riff confirmed my presumption once again. Definitely Starlight, skin and bones. Charge! The crowd was in the air right away. Andy up high with the vocals, strong, clean, clear, full! Fantastic! I kept on dreaming. Almost without a pause, Helloween continued with Murderer! I glanced over at Peter. He was shaking his head too, as if to say: “It can’t be!” Two classics straight from Walls Of Jericho (1985), straight between the eyes. Then I thought: “Guys, play whatever you want now, as far as I’m concerned, play Rokere s Moravu!” But Helloween didn’t hear me. Andy tried in German to console the fans and ask them to forgive them, since they’d now move for a moment to the era of both Keepers. Sascha Gerstner played something on an acoustic guitar. That something was none other than the intro of Keeper Of The Seven Keys. That was the peak. There you go, I still get goosebumps along my skin, I just mentally moved back into the show. A tight 13-minute fantasy, full of atmospheric twists and, most importantly, the singer sang brilliantly. Bravely and without brakes. Until that moment I’d lived under the delusion that Helloween no longer play the old repertoire because Andy Deris simply isn’t capable of singing it, as it’s pitched in too high a key for him. A shot in the dark, completely! A coherent ending, a fullness of clear sound, a clean victory! The audience was bursting with enthusiasm. As if Helloween had come to promote their “best of” “Treasure Chest” (2002) and not the “Rabbit Don’t Come Easy” released this spring. The era of both keepers just went on and on through the bouncy Future World and Eagle Fly Free with Markus’s trademark bass “tapping” insert, for which the guy, as always, earned thunderous applause. Judging by how the show unfolded, I can call the whole thing absolute madness. Are we in the eighties? Of course the one who impressed most of all was singer Andy. The ever-smiling guy, whose face simply glowed with positive energy. He joked constantly and addressed not just the whole audience but individuals in the crowd. Between his narratives in German, a lost shout of “Do you speak English?” could be heard now and then. Besides the excellently sung repertoire from Kiske’s and Hansen’s legacy, Andy won people over with his remarkable stage presence and spontaneity. That puts him at the very top of heavy metal singers. If we now add up Andy’s qualities, which his two predecessors certainly didn’t have so refined, then… Well, what gives all the Helloween albums with Deris on vocals from the nineties to today such a special stamp? A recognizable voice, renowned for its expressive range and exceptional tonal variations, which brings unpredictability into today’s Helloween and conjures up a very special mood in their music.
Forever And One (“Time Of The Oath”, 1996) calmed things down. To be honest, I needed a little breather, as I was already properly drowning in a sea of my own sweat. Only the seventh song was taken from Helloween’s newest album. The punchy Open Your Life, with a simple but warm chorus the audience joined in on easily. The real emotionally charged bombs came with two hits. Hey Lord! (“Better Than Raw”, 1998) and later If I Could Fly (“The Dark Ride”, 2000), which, interestingly, Helloween didn’t play at all on “The Dark Ride” tour. Both songs stand out for their simple, fluid structure, while at the same time launching the listener, through their melancholic build, piano additions and the smeared “new age” sound of full guitar riffs, into a real high-atmosphere experience. Sascha shredded his way through the whole solo in If I Could Fly. The newcomer in the lineup is a superb replacement for Grapow (Masterplan). Not only does he “outwrite” him across the board in technique and mastery of guitar wizardry, the young man also gives an impression of complete freedom from burden in adapting musically to different situations, as dictated by Helloween’s new expression. His exceptional speed and precision in shaking arpeggios out of his sleeve also make it very easy for him to take over the more guitar-complex tracks from the eighties. I won’t go into a lecture about why Helloween shied away from the old repertoire for so long. The reason wasn’t Andy Deris. Andy, sorry once again! Maybe a head-on collision of egos that simply wouldn’t allow the previous Helloween lineup to play anything more from the two “keepers” and from the walls of Jericho. The feeling is that Helloween are breathing with full lungs again. The shake-ups are welcome in every respect, and “Rabbit Dont Come Easy” is an important precursor in the band’s evolution. The next album will namely fully confirm where Helloween are musically at right now.
The precise picking across the riffs of both guitarists came across entirely coherent and lay in perfect balance throughout. The riffing never drowned out the transitional guitar harmonies or solos. The sound was phenomenal, and you could literally hear every fart in the hall in detail. While Michael Weikath faithfully clings to his Gibson Les Paul, the younger Sascha likes to reach for an Ibanez guitar with a downward-pointed headstock. In short, a model that looks nastier and angrier than what many younger-generation guitarists use today.
Helloween closed the main set with Power. On this occasion Andy allowed himself a little fun. He split the audience into two halves and the left and the right now competed over which was louder. Andy’s right won. The singer joked in passing that he’d been getting pulled toward the right of the stage the whole show, probably because of the larger number of pretty young ladies (never mind the metal dudes in dog collars smeared with Vaseline, they don’t count!!!). So before the last chorus, the guys stopped and the audience was forced to bellow that “Oh, oooh-oooh-oooh-oh oh,….” orgasmically. Spiced with an excellent fade out, Power faded into the night, and the guys quickly bolted backstage. Power served as the opening song on the previous tour.
The encore opened with a new song, Sun 4 The World. At the start, Stefan Schwarzmann and Sascha built an exceptional atmosphere. For the occasion Sascha picked up an instrument that looked like a hybrid of a harp, a sitar and an electric guitar. In short, a wonder of wonders, fitted with an above-average number of strings. Helloween just couldn’t leave us without a taste of “Walls Of Jericho”. I’m talking about the little over six-minute mini epic How Many Tears. It once again lifted the mood to a higher level and fired up the crowd like crazy. The best possible solution for wrapping up a get-together that lasted an hour and a good 40 minutes!
Helloween truly surprised me. What do I mean, surprised, they moved me! The first reason was the phenomenal set list, which I wouldn’t have dared to dream of even in my wildest dreams. Compared to the previous “The Dark Ride” tour, only four songs stayed the same in the repertoire: Dr. Stein, Eagle Fly Free, Power and How Many Tears. Isn’t that exciting? With Stefan and Sascha in the lineup, a fresh wind is blowing for Helloween again. A new cohesive chemistry has been built. We can eagerly look forward to what the pumpkins will offer us in the future. Above all, I hope for as many shows like this as possible.
Setlist
Rage: 01. Orgy Of Destruction 02. War Of Worlds 03. Great Old Ones 04. Soundchaser 05. Sent By The Devil 06. Firestorm 07. Down 08. Guitar solo: Victor Smolski (incl. Lunatic) 09. Set This World On Fire 10. Drum solo: Mike Terrana 11. Don’t Fear The Winter —encore— 12. Higher Than The Sky Helloween: 01. Intro 02. Starlight 03. Murderer 04. Keeper Of The Seven Keys 05. Future World 06. Eagle Fly Free 07. Forever And One 08. Open Your Life 09. Hey Lord! 10. Dr. Stein 11. Back Against The Wall 12. If I Could Fly 13. Power —encore— 14. Sun 4 The World 15. How Many Tears
