Сет-лист: Intro King For A 1000 Years Eagle Fly Free Hell Was Made In Heaven Keeper Of The Seven Keys A Tale That Wasn't Right Dani/Markus drum solo Occasion Avenue Mr. Torture If I Could Fly Sascha/Dani guitar solo Power Future World The Invisible Man Mrs. God I Want Out Dr. Stein

It's not a week yet since I returned from the Finnish concerts of Helloween. And now sitting in front of the clear computer screen, I feel the same confusion as I did two months ago writing about the new album of Helloween. The fact is that sometimes the words of any language are too weak, especially if they are about creative or live work of such an outstanding band as this one. So, there are just a few thoughts concerning The Keeper who comes (a)live again. Because the truth is that I can't be impartial enough to write a usual journalist review and I don't know why should I. To be honest, after working as a photographer right under the stage twice within this tour, very close to the Show, I'm nearly in the same state of mind as a true fan. And maybe I love live music in general for the very moments like this, when the power of the band covers you all over and over and over again...

Also there is one exciting thing beyond a show but a few hours before it. It is said in Russia that if you wanna know the whole truth about any woman you should explore her bathroom. :)) I think, if you wanna know something about a band's work you should look at least at its sound-check. Thus, on 26th of November afternoon I was in the big Kaapelitehdas hall (capacity about 3.000, ten minutes by taxi from the city center). The venue was already full of Sascha Gerstner's guitar heavy sounds. A bit later Markus Grosskopf, Dani Loeble and Michael Weikath appeared on the stage as well.

The importance of the moment was in the air. You know, the Finnish gigs were scheduled at the very beginning of The Legacy tour. The weeks of intensive rehearsals and only a few Eastern Europe dates were left behind. The set-list is quite complicated. There are old and new songs. Three of them are long complex epic ones. The band uses a lot of stage, light and previously recorded sound effects (for example, the keyboard parts). Everything is to be joined with the live sound. So, it seemed to me that it should be a time of technical difficulties, disorder, diffidence… But nothing at all went wrong, at least from the outsider's point of view. Or rather, it was obvious that the band worked really hard but without any irritability and needless fuss.

Mostly, the band worked at the fresh songs during sound-check - A King For A 1000 Years, Occasion Avenue, The Invisible Man... During this closed-for-public part one can be impressed so much by the accuracy and the easy creative atmosphere inside the band. In fact, Helloween is on the rise. Everybody is at his place. Now I understand what Michael Weikath meant in our interview one and a half year ago, when he told us that there's no single person who runs the band and "everybody is concerned about what's going on". A kinda social idea ;)) It looks just like Sascha's been playing in the band since its founding. The same with the freshman Dani Loeble who has taken the show-man duties, in addition to his main drumming job.

Actually, sometimes it's even difficult to say who is the front-man. The stage performance is well thought-out. Now the audience plays with Andi in a "guess-what-we-drink" game, now it watches the spectacular guitar duels of Weikath-Gerstner or Weikath's artistic playing … In Tampere he really drove his side of the crowd crazy, jumping on the box standing in front of the stage to the right. Sometimes people can laugh at the comic attempts of Marcus to over-play Dani during drum solo... or Dani's attacks on Sascha with a toy-guitar in the drummer's hands (guitar solo game). Finally, Markus breaks down his small drum kit, and Dani in his turn rushes away from the stage - beaten but resilient. Hey, he's good at his place and he really does, for example, that fantastic job in the middle of Occasion Avenue live as well as he's done it on the recording. So, people have not only the metal gig but the comedy show at the same time.