The
past two years were without doubt among the most successful in
Helloween’s long career. Their album success, Keeper
Of The Seven Keys – The Legacy, earned them critical
acclaim all over the world, and the five musicians, Andi Deris
(vocals), Michael Weikath (guitar), Markus Großkopf (bass),
Sascha Gerstner (guitar) and Dani Löble (drums), embarked on a
celebrated tour around the world, playing over 100 concerts in
40 countries and sold-out shows in packed venues wherever they
appeared. Helloween recorded three of these shows - in Sofia,
Tokyo and Sao Paulo - and have just released these recordings
on their brand-new double live album and double live DVD. Over
6,000 enthusiastic fans came to the show in Sao Paulo on March
25, 2006, where the majority of the cuts were recorded,
celebrating their idols with frenetic applause.
Keeper
Of The Seven Keys – The Legacy World Tour 2005/2006 Live On 3
Continents / Live In Sao Paulo
has
been released as a double DVD or double CD. The double CD
consists of 15 songs with an overall playing time of almost
two hours, including the two bonus tracks ‘Occasion Avenue’
and ‘Halloween’, recorded in Tokyo and at the Masters Of Rock
in Vizovice, Czechia. The material was mixed by longstanding
Helloween producer Charlie Bauerfeind.
Keeper Of The Seven Keys – The Legacy World Tour 2005/2006
Live On 3 Continent/Live In Sao Paulo includes, many
tracks from the current studio album, Keeper Of The Seven Keys
– The Legacy, also a number of classics such as ‘I Want Out’,
‘Dr. Stein’, ‘Eagle Fly Free’, ‘Mr. Torture’ or ‘If I Could
Fly’, and presents for the first time Helloween’s three
monumental tracks, ‘Halloween’, ‘Keeper Of The Seven Keys’ and
‘The King For A 1000 Years’ (plus ‘Occasion Avenue’) together
on one offering. It this respect it’s the perfect foil to
anyone that owns the Roland Grapow/Uli Kusch era double live
disc ‘High Live’.
CD
Disc 1 opens with a 13 minute epic in ‘The
King For A 1000 Years’ which is either likely to be a
mistake or success depending on your viewpoint, well lets
just say the audience here is lapping up every minute big time
and its hard to not get sucked in by their enthusiasm for such
a long opener, Inf act I cannot remember any recent live
albums where the crowds sound quite as enthusiastic as here,
essentially you have several thousand Helloween fans singing
along to every one of Andi Deris’ lyrics. Musically the track
is also a bit of a scorcher, Compare it to new Iron Maiden
material and Helloween are definitely producing much more
interesting music. Classic ‘Eagle Fly Free’ sounds as
urgent as ever and the crowd seem even more frenzied here!
‘Hell Was Made In Heaven’ from ‘Rabbit Don’t Come Easy’ is
another track that works incredibly well in the live arena,
some scorching riffs here completed by rhythmic chanting from
the Brazilian crowd. The band then delve way back in the
bands archives to bring the track ‘Keeper Of The Seven
Keys’ (from ‘Keeper Of The Seven Keys pt.II), for a track
that is now almost 20 years old its surprising how fresh it
still sounds and this gives you a clue to the key to
Helloween’s continued success over the years. It’s pretty
hard to pinpoint the band down to one particular time in the
metal evolution charts and no doubt this is a factor in their
longevity and success. ‘A Tale That Wasn’t Right’
(another 20 year old track from Keeper pt.I) sees the tempo
slow down and really allows Deris to show his voices
versatility. The live production here also shines with great
power and separation. ‘Mr Torture’ and ‘If I Could
Fly’ both from the 2000 album ‘The Dark Ride - an album
which disappointed me immensely on initial release but in the
live format the track works better – although ‘Mr Torture’
comes across as one of the weaker tracks on the album whilst
‘If I Could Fly’ fares better. Another classic ‘Power’
(from Time Of The Oath) album closes disc 1 in fine style.
CD Disc
2 gets off to a flying start with an extended version of
‘Future World’ which sees the band members being
introduced by Deris. The band then delve into their latest
release ‘Keeper Of The Seven Keys – The Legacy’ for ‘The
Invisible Man’ which shows the band in top form once again
with its insatiable riffing and well worked vocal melodies,
whilst the more accessible ‘Mrs. God’ is a good example
of the band in catchy single mode. ‘I Want Out’ and a
sublime ‘Dr Stein’ takes us back to Keeper II days once
again and its another track that goes down incredibly well
with the live masses and its chorus is text book power metal.
Its quite easy to sometimes overlook the bands role in the
genre but simply without Helloween you probably wouldn’t have
the like of Rhapsody Of Fire or one of the many other leading
power metal acts currently on the scene. To finish off the
second disc are 2 bonus tracks clocking in at a combined 23
minutes in ‘Occasion Avenue’ and ‘Halloween’ and these 2
tracks sort of serve as bookends of the Helloween career to
date and showcase that not only have the band stayed
relatively consistent to their basic premise of sound but
continue to produce material that can captivate.
The live
DVD is just as good a product as the live album and may even
be a better starting place for anyone new to Helloween. The
audio is excellent, the visuals are great, nice close ups on
guitar solos etc and the band and crowd both equally are
having a great time.
SUMMARY
Helloween sound totally revitalised and invigorated throughout
this entire double live disc. The quality of the new material
is right up there is with compositions from what is often
considered the bands best era and only goes to highlight that
this is one band that is still producing material that backs
up their legacy. I feared the band would loose impact after
the loss of Grapow and Kusch (who went onto form Masterplan)
at the start of this millennium, yet the addition of Dani
Löble (drums) and Sascha Gerstner (guitar) to the long
established trio of Michael Weikath (guitar), Andi Deris
(vocals) and Markus Grosskopf (bass) have given the band a
shot of new adrenalin and taken them to even greater heights.
This is celebrated well with the ‘Live In Sao Paulo’ CD and
‘Live On 3 Continents’ DVD making this an essential purchase
for Helloween fans and a highly recommended release for the
general Metal fan.
RATING
90%
OFFICIAL WEBSITE
http://www.helloween.org
