Some concerts are the result of expected tour cycles stemming from the release of new albums, and they certainly generate excitement among that band’s particular fan base, but sometimes a tour is packaged in such a way as to make the event truly special. For Blind Guardian, a band who along with countrymen Helloween, Iron Savior, and Gamma Ray, pretty much defined the German Thrash Metal meets Power Metal hybridization, any tour on U.S. soil is a big one for their legion of rabid fans. On Thursday September 15, 2016, in cavernous Webster Hall in Manhattan, NYC, Blind Guardian invited their fans to help them celebrate their landmark 1995 album, Imaginations From The Other Side, by playing it in its entirety. Coming along for support was another old school treat in the form of Grave Digger. Originating from the same region of Germany as Blind Guardian, called Westphalia, their career extends back to 1982. Boasting 17 studio albums, the last being 2015’s Exhumation (The Early Years), there is a cult feeling around these headbangers which only added to the excitement gripping this lower Manhattan venue. The headliners were here in this venue just last year, but the ramped up excitement on hand made it seem like they had not played New York in a decade.
The place was filling up as Grave Digger took the stage, opening with “Headbanging Man” and “The Dark of the Sun.” A band more used to playing massive outdoor festivals like Wacken, the steely vets gripped the crowd with their sound. Frontman Chris Boltendahl engaged the crowd, affable and exuberant, with strong choruses and double-bass melodies ramping up the crowd’s hunger for Metal music. Throughout a set that featured hard, charging renditions of “Season of the Witch” with its anthemic chorus, “Hammer of the Scots,” and the sterling “Excalibur,” many in the crowd could be heard singing heartily along. For “Excalibur,” Boltendahl yelled the first part of the title and fans answered him with the last syllable. The band was clearly happy with the response they were getting from the New York City crowd. They promised they would return in about two years’ time, not soon enough judging by the answering yells of fans old and new. Closing it out, Boltendahl asked the crowd if they like Heavy Metal, before launching into “Heavy Metal Breakdown.” The riffing and cymbal crashes are pure denim-n-leather old school blood in the veins of Metal fans everywhere. It was impossible not to bang heads and throw up the horns, and that is just what the Webster Hall faithful were doing as they rocked their set to its conclusion.
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With that sonic appetizer gone down a treat, the now packed hall was eager for the main course. The stage backdrop featured the iconic enchanted lute from the Imaginations From The Other Side album, with its doorway to another realm, so important to Blind Guardian’s storybook philosophy. In times like these, with the news getting worse and worse on T.V., a band unafraid to impel its fans to recall that the stories of our youth, though fantastical in content, have plenty of lessons for the real world. Moreover, they supply the necessary escape that helps keeps one sane as we plow through the everyday.
As smoke filled the stage and the band appeared, a massive roar went up from the crowd. “The Ninth Wave” is the opening song from their latest album, Beyond the Red Mirror, lyrically a continuation of the storyline of Imaginations From The Other Side. The choral intro stoked the crowd, many members of which knew the Latin words comprising it. The song went down a storm, as fans were perhaps unsure when the band would launch into the album they were set to play in its entirety. By this time, the early start to the night was revealing itself as Webster Hall’s attempt to cram two wholly different shows into one night. The feeling that the headliners would be rushed was beginning to sully an otherwise perfect event. Unperturbed, short-haired Singer Hansi Kursch looked over the crowd and bid them “welcome to . . . welcome to . . .” getting a hearty “DYING” response from most mouths in the hall. “Welcome to Dying,” from 1990’s Tales From The Twilight World, showcases the Speed Metal heart-beating beneath the classically trained flesh of Blind Guardian. Surprisingly, an exuberant mosh pit opened up just to stage left, as the double bass hammer attack of Drummer Frederik Ehmke got swiftly under the skin of the spectators. The band transitioned up to “Nightfall,” from the peerless masterpiece Nightfall in Middle Earth (1998). The sound was great, each note played could be heard, but what overrode it all was the sheer number of individuals who knew every single word to these anthemic songs. Bards to the bone, Blind Guardian has always had a knack for writing heart-wrenching verses and choruses that implant themselves in the memory banks. High school age kids and graybeards alike bellowed the words, rivaling the feel of a show in Germany or Japan.
After playing “Prophecies” from the latest album, Kursch drew the crowd’s attention to the evening’s grand purpose. As the intro tape to “Imaginations From The Other Side” played out, the place went nuts. This album was the transition between what Blind Guardian was from birth into what they would turn into in the latter half of their career. Transition albums like this often outshine other works in a band’s discography, because they encompass all the beloved elements of where they have been and where they are going. The opening title track and “I’m Alive,” at their heart, are blistering Speed Metal triumphs, full of adrenaline and verve. But, there is so much more going on underneath. Some fans were captivated by that “so much more,” while that knot of sweating testosterone down front continued to batter each other like they were at a Kreator show.
Just then, the stools came out, and Marcus Siepen and Andre Olbrich exchanged their electric guitars for acoustics. “A Past and Future Secret” mesmerized with its Middle Ages feel, as Blind Guardian went from playing some of the best Speed Metal on earth to something you would hear in a king’s court before the invention of the printed word. Nary a voice in the hall failed to sing along, much to the delight of the band themselves.
Beyond this, it was just pure bliss as “The Script From My Requiem,” “Mordred’s Song,” and “Born In A Mourning Hall” were unearthed. Each song has an introductory set-up that is quite possibly second to none in the genre (and that includes your Maidens and your Metallicas). The night was filled with stunningly gorgeous Andre Olbrich soloing, inimitable rhythm riffage by his counterpart Marcus Siepen. The fans sang along, the mosh pit churned, the whole thing conflating into an experience that went far beyond the usual. The back half of the album, “Bright Eyes,” “Another Holy War,” and finisher “And The Story Ends” gave the thrashy, Power Metal set further epic kicks in the tookus. The slower, anthemic chorus of “Bright Eyes” combined with the faster pace of “Another Holy War” to deliver the crowd into the arms of the finale with glee and smiles all around.
Some in the crowd thought this was it, that the time constraint hanging over the band’s head would end the night early. When the stools and the acoustics came out once again, fans of Blind Guardian knew what was about to happen. “The Bard’s Song (In The Forest)” is something of a cult classic among fans. An ode to realms of fantasy, the crowd sang along so well that Kursch allowed them to carry the tune alone, which raised more than a few goosebumps on more than a few arms. Following this, the band closed out the night with “Mirror, Mirror,” which somehow manages to take all the epic as well as all the speed and somehow ramp that up even further. Breathless, the crowd yelled for more nonetheless. They began chanting the chorus to “Valhalla,” another old-school favorite, but to no avail. Clearly touched by the New York City crowd’s devotion, Blind Guardian took a bow and exited a bit early for everyone’s tastes. Next time, perhaps Webster Hall will not try to greedily cram ten pounds of music into a five pound bag, because that pressure tarnished what otherwise was a perfect night of heavy Metal grandeur.
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