Helloween has taken their 40th anniversary tour to North America with Beast In Black as their opener. It’s a power metal fan’s must see and on April 15th (damn tax day!) I headed to Boston with my buddy Del to catch the show!

Beast In Black does about a 10 song set which leaves no time for ballads (I’m actually not sure if they have any ballads). So, they just bring an hour or so of power metal awesomeness! They opened up with Power of the Beast, a fitting power metal title. 

If you’re not familiar with this band, their singer, Yannis, a dude, has a very unique high pitched voice. I have to admit I was fooled when I first heard this band. I thought they had a female singer with a male co-singer. But nope! All him. It’s quite impressive. Two songs in particular (if you ask me) really showcase the high vocals: Sweet True Lies and From Hell With Love. Their song Born Again, which was played in between the two I just mentioned, is a personal fave. It’s a just a good ole sounding power metal tune. All are worth checking out.

Only thing that bothered me about the performance was the prerecorded music. They have unique sounds and music that complement the guitars that could be made with a solid keyboard player. So why not have a keyboard player instead of the prerecorded sounds? Dream Theater pulls it off! They can too! Plus the band is usually a 5 piece but the main guitarist and songwriter didn’t make the trek to the US as he was back home (Finland maybe?) mixing their new album. So if you’re normally five dudes, why not bring a different 5th to produce the sounds live? Oh well. It was a cool set and I’m sure you can find the full setlist if interested. I definitely loved the 80s style guitar moves where the dudes stand side by side and rock in sync. Total 80s rock move!

Helloween was the headliner tonight and whether you’ve heard of them or not, this tour is supporting 40 years of Helloween!

What pisses me off about the current state of music in America is that tonight’s show was at the House of Blues in Boston. It has a capacity of around 2400 and was definitely not a sold out show. However, if you head over to Europe, these dudes are selling out 20k seat arenas. We need to work on that America!

Anyway, while I’m not a hard core fan, I’m familiar with a ton of their music from my metal radio show days. I don’t like to research shows before I go so I was pleasantly surprised to see that they have both of their vocalists from over the years doing co-lead vocals. This is what everyone wanted to see Van Halen pull off but they never did.

Now I’m sure if you’re a fan, you prob think I should’ve known that they have both of their singers in the band now. But I didn’t, so sue me. It was awesome though, and smart. They’ve been around for 40 years, they’re not young guys, and the vocals are demanding. So they sometimes alternate songs, alternate verses, lend harmonies to one another, and even sometimes take a break and let their guitarist sing lead.

On their song Future World they did an awesome job of alternating lines and verses, while sounding nearly identical in tone. Pretty awesome to see singers from different periods of the band working together like that. Definitely a nice touch for fans!

So many great tunes were played, but with forty years of material, they can’t play them all. I was bummed they didn’t play Just A Little Sign from the “Rabbit Don’t Come Easy” album, but they did play Hell Was Made in Heaven from it. Not the same though.

The night was filled with a fantastic stage setup, impressive background graphics and effects, epic vocals, harmonies, bass solos, guitar solos, and a drum solo on the craziest drum kit I think I’ve ever seen. It even tops Mike Portnoy’s drum kit (and that makes my 2nd Dream Theater reference).

They of course played their biggest hit I Want Out and it was awesome. I do love that song and it used to be my mantra when rotting away at previous jobs. It’s like an anthem for freedom. Check it out!

It was an awesome metal show and we both enjoyed it. While I have no proof of it, as we were leaving the show through a side staircase we had access to thanks to Del always doing upgrades, we saw Yannis in the stairwell. We let him know the show was awesome, gave him a fist bump, and let him know that Beast was the reason we went to the show. They were the draw for Del and Helloween was a nice bonus for me. We didn’t bug him for a photo or anything as he chatting it up with a lady. We didn’t want to be the guys that interrupted any plans…