Helloween, Stratovarius and Pink Cream 69 in Kaufbeuren: Chasing Andi Deris’s Musical Roots (2011)
Location: Kaufbeuren / All Kart Halle / Germany
Date: 02/11/2011
The day after the Accept show in Munich (report here), another big heavy metal event went down just ninety kilometers away in Kaufbeuren. Helloween rolled into the local Allkarten Halle with a hefty tour in tow. Reason enough to stretch the German excursion: a morning cruise around the center of the Bavarian capital and, of course, a sweep through every record store in sight. Arriving in Kaufbeuren in the afternoon, we found that this town, about the size of Kranj and southwest of Munich on the map, has a really lovely old center where you can easily rest both body and soul.
On the European leg of the tour, Helloween were joined by Stratovarius and Avatar, but for the German leg they picked a far more attractive support. Opening the night were Pink Cream 69, heavy rockers from Karlsruhe, where none other than Andi Deris, the voice of Helloween for more than a decade and a half now, started his career. So the chance for something big was practically begging to happen: Deris on stage with his old buddies, belting out one of the classics from the first three albums he recorded with Pink Cream before leaving. Just as exclusive was Helloween’s 2007 “Gambling with the Devil” tour, when the Pumpkins hit the road with Gamma Ray, so the legendary Kai Hansen, the band’s former driving force and main engine, regularly joined them on stage.
As a household name, Pink Cream 69 had already pulled a huge crowd into the halved-off Allkarten Halle, and they kicked off their set at eight on the dot. They opened the evening with the new song Children Of The Dawn and right away came across as a tight, well-oiled unit, even though they played without their guitarist of recent years, Uwe Reitenauer, who had to skip the whole mini tour because of personal commitments. Axxxis guitarist Marco Wriedt stepped into his boots. With Do You Like It Like That the Germans started steering toward their earlier material, with David Readman still holding down the frontman spot. With energetic bits of stage business and deadly execution, he proved with every move that a frontman career was written in his cradle, and his voice is still serving him in all its playfulness for now. Add a reliable instrumental backbone and the trademark multi-part vocals in hits like Talk To The Moon or Shame, and you get proof that Pink Cream 69 are still a seriously relevant stage attraction in 2011. The tempo kept climbing and hit its peak with another classic, Keep Your Eye On The Twisted, and even though we didn’t get the long-awaited guest return of Deris to his old bandmates, we can call the evening’s opening act a very positive one.
Up second were Stratovarius, who left a pale impression in Ljubljana two weeks ago, mostly thanks to vocalist Timo Kotipelto, who sounded completely off-key. The Finnish power metal giants delivered their familiar repertoire, the backbone of their shows for years, and leaned heavily on the good mood and big numbers of that day’s crowd. The loud singing and cheering won the Finns over and made life easier for Kotipelto, who didn’t need any vocal extravagance. The frontman was in better shape than a few days earlier, the cold is clearly a thing of the past, though his vocal power and intensity are no longer at the level of the golden Stratovarius years. The set was marked by the trademark solo excursions of Jens Johansson on keyboards and the unerring guitar technician Matias Kupiainen, where even the biggest nitpickers couldn’t have caught a single wrong note. Songs like Speed of Light, Forever and Black Diamond drew loud salvos of enthusiasm and once again cemented the Finnish power metal protagonists as credible heirs to Tolkki’s rich legacy.
While the stage was being prepared for the final act, a huge curtain with the cover of Stratovarius’s current album “Polaris” was still hanging there, so only its removal right before the Helloween show revealed how big the stage was, stretching far into the depths. As in Ljubljana, the stage setup was nicely rounded out by a rotating construction with the motif of Helloween’s latest album “7 Sinners” above the drum kit, which, given the stage’s huge dimensions, made it look even better.
Since this was my third time seeing Helloween on the current tour, and the setlist doesn’t vary from show to show, the one big unknown for me was how the home crowd would react and take to the band on its new visit to Kaufbeuren. The very first bars of Are You Metal? and the loud response from the crowd announced a hell of a night! Everyone, from the younger generation to those who’ve followed the Pumpkins since the mid-eighties (concertgoers in German-speaking countries are way older than back home), fell into a concert trance and got fully involved as fans, breathing together with the band, cheering it on, pushing it forward. The non-acoustic hall, built primarily for go-kart racing, turned hurricane-loud in an instant, and the relatively cold space heated up to the point where we had to start breathing through gills to survive! Familiar anthems followed one after another, and the guitar trio of Weikath / Gerstner / Grosskopf plus Andi Deris dictated the show and strutted around with their antics. These seasoned musicians are real pros at this and know how to wrap fans around their little finger in no time, even at the expense of rapidly running-out minutes. They conquered the above-average stage in an instant, bent it to their will with acrobatic position swaps, and passed yet another test on which plenty of musicians drop like dominoes. Eagle Fly Free, March Of Time and I’m Alive lit a proper fire, and the warm reception of the newest songs like Where The Sinners Go and World Of Fantasy proved in black and white that the crowd has taken the “7 Sinners” album as its own too.
Tightness is no problem for the Pumpkins. His eminence Michael Weikath and Sascha Gerstner handled all the pitfalls of the show confidently and effortlessly, and the rhythm machine of Markus Grosskopf on bass and Dani Löble on the drum stool is already considered one of the best in the German heavy metal school. As in Ljubljana and Zagreb, the closer the show got to the end, the more banter came with it, and with it neatly disguised breaks, where Deris’s voice got to catch its breath first. It sounded relatively fresh and reliable, and the sentimental element, backed by Deris’s moves, kept the female part of the audience swooning as always. The evergreen melodies of the first and second Keeper albums capped off the hour-and-a-half-long get-together in dominant fashion, while the failure to play the old-school classic Ride The Sky left a bitter aftertaste. Only Helloween know why, and unfortunately we ran into the very rare situation where the German crowd, compared to most other dates on the tour, was shortchanged.
Drawing the line under the show gave the same conclusions as in Ljubljana. Anyone who came to the gig to relax and enjoy themselves got a fair dose of the Helloween circus, while anyone who came looking for something to nitpick surely found it too. But one thing is certain. The huge, solid crowd shaped the concert experience with a hellish rhythm far more intensely than the Slovenian or Croatian ones manage to. That’s why it’s worth going to gigs in Germany. And that’s why the second part of the German Rockline odyssey was declared a winner!
author: Urban Bolta
photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
HELLOWEEN:
1. Intro(AC/DC – For Those About to Rock/Happy Happy Halloween/Who is Mr.Madman?)
2. Are You Metal?
3. Eagle Fly Free
4. March Of Time
5. Guitar intro (Sascha)
6. Where The Sinners Go
7. World Of Fantasy
8. Drum solo
9. I’m Alive
10. Forever And One
11. Handfull Of Pain
12. MEDLEY: – Keeper Of The Seven Keys – King Of A Thousand Years – Halloween
13. I Want Out
—Encore I.—
14. Future World
—Encore II.—
15. Dr. Stein
STRATOVARIUS:
1. Hunting High and Low
2. Speed of Light
3. The Kiss of Judas
4. Winter Skies
5. Darkest Hours
6. Deep Unknown
7. Phoenix
8. Move The Mountain
9. Paradise
10. Black Diamond
PINK CREAM 69:
1. Children of the Dawn
2. Do You Like It Like That
3. No Way Out
4. Talk To The Moon
5. Shame
6. Lost In Illusion
7. Seas Of Madness
8. Keep Your Eye On The Twisted
