04.08.2011 Helloween

Wacken Open Air XXII

Wacken (Germany)

(Pentax k-x with Tamron SP AF 17-50mm 2.8 XR Di II LD Asp IF and Sigma AF 50-150mm 2.8 EX DC APO HSM II)

Towards 19:00 the doyens of Helloween entered the stage and had lots of material of in total 27 years of band history with them. But in the beginning it looked like someone minded their gig. Already after a few seconds of the opener "Are You Metal?" the power supply of the True Metal Stage broke down. It took a short while and then the guys around Andi Deris restarted calmly their gig just to be in the dark again after only 40 seconds and being not heard anymore by the audience (at least not from the rows in the back of the field). The next short break and sometime Andis voice could be heard again ("Can I be heard again? Thank god!").
The rest of the show followed without any issues. The gents are meanwhile getting a bit long in the tooth but are still able to persuade with great classics like "I Want Out" of "Dr. Stein". The fans always deeply requested the songs "Keeper Of The Seven Keys", "The King For A 1000 Years" and "Helloween" and they were played during this gig. But because of being too long when played one after the other (Statement by Andi:"Three songs with in total round about 47 minutes would be a little bit too hard for only one concert."), so the guys of Helloween made a best-of medley of them.
Vocally and musically it was a humdinger. Just like on stage, also in front of it everything went a little more leisured but nevertheless the show was worth it. However Andy Deris should have blathered a little less and also the annoying games between drummer and audience should have taken less time.