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What has now become my second home for gigs, sees
my return to Rio’s for what on paper promised be an excellent show.
First up tonight are the mighty Power Quest who have
become a tour de force since I first saw them back in 2004.
Since that day I have become a seasoned
supporter of the band and have watched them go
from strength the strength. Now with three
albums under their belts, all superseding the
last in quality and musicianship, it’s a pity
that they have only been allocated a forty five minute slot for tonight’s
show.
But by heck what a forty five
minutes! Opening up with the
epic-like intro 'Ascension'
before powering into 'Find My Heaven',
at which the near capacity crowd soon warmed to the band.
With the crowd now behind them the lads soon made the
stage their own with lead singer Alessio
playing the crowd like a pro. |
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The rest of the band looked like they were really
enjoying the gig, with guitarist Andrea Martongelli really shredding out
the riffs as if his life depended on it. What with the rhythm section of
young gun Francesco Tresca
pounding out the backbeat on the drums, and Steve
Scott keeping the impetus going with some amazing bass playing, the whole
stage was truly ablaze with energy. Holding it all together was the Welsh
wizard and backbone of the band himself, Mr Steve Williams on keyboards.
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The band continued their set with a song from the band's
debut album, the title track 'Wings
of Forever'. Then they unleashed two
tracks from the Neverworld album 'Sacred Land'
and 'Temple of Fire',
all of which went down an absolute storm with
the crowd.
The final songs of this all too short set were 'Magic
Never Dies', the title track off
the bands latest release, which was followed by
the power-metal ballad 'Hold on to Love',
which also heralded the
appearance of Steve Williams with the now infamous key-tar.
One thing that really stood out from this particular gig that I can't
remember being quite so prominent in their previous ones was that a large
proportion of the crowd not only knew who the band were, but knew a good
few songs and were able to sing along with all their might to all the
words. |
With what has become a running joke with the band and
their fans on their live shows was the request spot as Alessio asked the
crowd what they wanted to hear next. As
the fans all shouted out for 'Strike
Force', a song yet to be heard live and an
obvious favourite of their many
fans, but alas once again
their pleas were in vain and the band finished off their highly
impressive set with 'Neverworld'.
None of their fans were disappointed with this, but
maybe someday 'Strike Force'
will see the light of day at a live show.
I hope this performance by the band holds them in good
stead with those in the crowd who had never seen them before and hopefully
they will come back to see them again later next month
when the band tour again with Pagans Mind and will be once again returning to
this very venue.
This tour union of Power Quest and Helloween was certainly a
match made in heaven because those that did not know who the band were
when they first hit the stage were soon impressed by them and will
hopefully come back and see them again at future gigs.
A very well deserved congratulations for such a magnificent performance goes out to all the
Power Quest guys. Not did they warm the crowd up, but
they totally lifted the roof off the joint while
doing so. They certainly gave Helloween a tall order
to follow them on stage after a performance like that!
Now to the main
event, Helloween a band that I have always wanted to see live but have
always missed out on their shows for one reason or another in the past.
It seemed fitting
that the last song in the interval between bands was AC/DC's 'For Those
About To Rock' because Bradford was certainly going to rock tonight.
As the lights went
down the energy in the room hit boiling point,
as the intro slowly faded and the bands silhouettes
were seen on stage, this heralded the way
for what was going
to be a memorable night.
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The band opened up
with ‘The King For 1000 Years’ from the bands new album ‘Keeper Of The
Seven Keys –The Legacy’ and they nearly blew the roof off the place.
With Andi Deris in
superb form the rest of the band seemed to feed off his energy and they
all were definitely up for the show. |
The set continued
with ‘Eagle Fly Free’ from the Keeper part 2 , this seemed to fuel the
already hyper crowd, the euphoria continued with a set full of past
glories with the likes of the excellent’ Hell Was Made In Heaven’ and the
14 minute epic ‘Keeper of the Seven Keys’ the only interludes in this
power metal onslaught were the drum solo by newest member Dani Loble and
again with the guitar duel with Sascha Gerstner.
But the metal
continued with only another 3 songs off the new album ‘Occasion Avenue’
which is even better live, ‘Invisible Man’ my favorite track off the new
album, and the spell binding ‘Mrs. God’, most of the set was
focusing on the bands back catalogue.
The crowd favourites
of the night had to be the immense ‘Future World’ and ‘I Want Out’ and the
show closer ‘Dr Stein’.
This has so far been
the metal show of the year with both bands delivering the goods and once
again Bradford Rio is the home of true metal gods.
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