I’m no stranger to feeling uncomfortable or out of place, but I’ll admit to being especially worried about seeing Blind Guardian. This summer, I attended a university lecture about doom metal – one that painted the culture as being particularly defensive and hostile to intruders. Knowing very little about Blind Guardian – and metal in general – left me with the fear that the music would be impenetrable, or that I’d immediately stick out to the band’s devoted fans. When I rolled up to the Corona Theatre, however, I was relieved to discover two things: that Blind Guardian is warm, accessible, and inviting – and that their fans enjoy themselves too much to give a damn about what anyone else thinks.
My first hint that everything would be fine came with the opening act, Germany’s Grave Digger. Standing before an elaborate painting of the Grim Reaper riding atop a horse (of course), the Gladbeck quintet started precisely on-time and charged through a tight set of fast-paced, melodic tunes. Far from the growling, incomprehensible doom-music that I was afraid of, Grave Digger is firmly rooted in the tradition of familiar 80’s metal – complete with decipherable lyrics, flawless musicianship, and an affable frontman in singer Chris Boltendahl. Listening to songs like Grave Digger’s on record, it’s easy to take the music for granted – but seeing guitarist Axel Ritt’s fingers go crazy in person gave me a new appreciation for the skill that goes into actually playing these songs.
Despite the driving basswork and meticulous guitar solos, I was happy to see that Grave Digger don’t take themselves too seriously. Embracing the goofy occult theatre of songs like “Witch Hunter” and “Excalibur” (“a song about a really famous sword!”), Boltendahl made good use of exaggerated arm gestures and call-and-response choruses (jokingly: “sounds like my grandma!”) to connect with the crowd. It definitely worked for me, though I wasn’t completely sold until “Tattooed Rider”. That was when I realized that keyboardist H.P. Katzenberg had been wearing a hooded skeleton costume the whole time, complete with moving skull jaws. If that’s metal, I want more.
Having been happily surprised by the accessibility of Grave Digger, I was feeling much more at ease by the time Blind Guardian took the stage: the perfect position to have my face melted off by masters of their trade. The six-piece band took their spots, entering to recorded chants – and when drummer Frederik Ehmke sat down shirtless at his formidable kit, twin bass drums and all, I could tell that Blind Guardian meant business.
Touring with Beyond the Red Mirror – their first record in five years – the band started with the album’s opening cut, “The Ninth Wave”, a proggy overture about destruction and new beginnings. I was caught off guard by the sight of unassuming singer Hansi Kürsch, looking more like a record store manager than a heavy metal hero – but when he opened his mighty pipes, it was clear that he was in his element. Though his voice was at first lost in the mix, overpowered by the thunderous drums and twin guitars, it seemed as if the technical kinks were ironed out before the end of the nearly 10 minute saga.
Between songs, punctuated by the crowd’s prolonged chanting of “Guar-dian! Guard-ian!”, Kürsch shattered my preconceptions about heavy metal frontmen by downshifting easily from “epic” and “operatic” to soft-spoken, genial guy. Apologizing for the five year gap since their last show in Montreal, Kürsch promised that the band was looking forward to making the wait worth it, with a smile: “expectations are very high for tonight”. The audience, meanwhile, hung onto every word. At no point during the show did I look around and see a soul playing with their phone, and this engagement was only amplified with “Nightfall”, when Kürsch announced that the nearly three-hour set would be recorded for the release of their next live album.
From this point on, the Blind Guardian’s energy was matched peak-for-peak by the sold-out crowd’s enthusiasm, trucking through a setlist that touched upon nearly all of their albums. The audience energy was infectious, and even though it was sometimes hard for a newbie to follow the crowd’s extended chorus chants and the bards’ more elaborate story-songs (pulling from sources as diverse as Norse mythology and The Lord of the Rings), I never once felt unwelcome. I, too, felt the love for the spooky oom-pah-pah of “Majesty” and main set-closer “Imaginations From the Other Side”, watching stage security pick off spirited crowd-surfers like approaching Space Invaders. After two lengthy encores, ending off with the twin acoustic guitars of “The Bard’s Song – In the Forest” and the triumphant “Mirror Mirror”, I walked away feeling completely exhausted. Not, as I’d initially feared, from stress or anxiety – only tired satisfaction from a hell of a good time.
Grave Digger setlist
Headbanger Man
The Round Table (Forever)
Witch Hunter
Ballad of a Hangman
Season of the Witch
Excalibur
Tattooed Rider
Highland Farewell
Rebellion (The Clans Are Marching)
Heavy Metal Breakdown
Blind Guardian setlist
The Ninth Wave
Banish from Sancutary
Nightfall
Fly
Tanelorn (Into the Void)
Prophecies
The Last Candle
Lord of the Rings
Majesty
Bright Eyes
Imaginations from the Other Side
Encore
Sacred Worlds
Twilight of the Gods
Valhalla
Encore 2
The Script for My Requiem
The Bard’s Song – In the Forest
Mirror Mirror
Review – Dan Corber
Photos – Kieron Yates
