Helloween – Pumpkins United Tour – London

Matt Fabi — Sun, 07 Jan 2018 17:26:57 +0000

It was always going to be something not to be missed. Kai Hansen and Michael Kiske back in HELLOWEEN. The pioneers of power metal didn’t disappoint. Opening with Halloween with both Michael and Kai present, it was an interesting set up basically switching around from Michael and Andi on vocals together to one and then the other with Kai taking vocals on a couple of classic Halloween tracks.

I saw Helloween a few years ago at the Kentish Town forum a little bit further away in north London and significantly smaller. Since the release of their last album My God Given Right there has been speculation about a return of original members, mostly it never really fades though. They said the same thing about many other bands that have reunited.

It was a very enjoyable event that was very much exactly the atmosphere that me and all the fans gathered were hoping for. The only thing that let the concert down overall was too much time in my opinion spent on the animations between the songs. Doc and Seth episodes, they were called.. It didn’t really add much to me. But still, that being said they gave us an almost 3 hour set so they’ve got to have breaks in between. It was nice to see more modern songs like “Are you metal?” go down as much of a storm as the well deserved classics like “Keeper of the Seven Keys” and “Dr Stein”. The animation of which was really good actually. I found it quite strange that they played something like keeper of the seven keys so far towards the end of such a long set because it is, let’s face it a mammoth of a song. There’s a really nice tribute in the middle to Ingo. It’s several videos of him doing various drum solos together with live performances from Daniel on stage. So well choreographed to mixed together brilliantly. It’s very well received.

Michael Kiske doesn’t appear to have much of a stage presence at first he just kind of walks around and interacts a little bit with the crowd but he soon gets warmed up.

One of the strangest things, although not a criticism, was the introduction music being Robbie Williams’ “Let Me Entertain You”. I didn’t see that coming and I know elitist but I didn’t imagine 2000 metalheads singing along to it either, and yet they did.

Kai taking the reins on vocals halfway through the set for “Heavy Metal (is the law)” and also for a medley of “Ride The Sky”, “Starlight” and “Judas” was also a nice touch well placed and perfectly time- limited so as not to go too heavy on his singing but give the people what they wanted.

As expected the finale was their most famous song “I Want Out”. Where did particularly well on the sharing of vocals on this one and inflatable pumpkins falling down a being smacked around all the crowd was quite funny as well.

It was definitely worth the wait and I hope it’s indicative of them proceeding to do things together in this way, but I don’t know about that. The rumor is that after this tour, which continues on in to next year – that’s it for the reunion. If you can go, you definitely should.

Kai Hansen – Power Of Metal.dk

Helloween – Pumpkins United Tour – London