Saw that Chris Jericho sang Best Time last night in LA with Andi and Michael. Blah. But hoping tonight if they have a guest, it's someone better. Last night of the U.S. tour I believe. Hopefully they pull out all the stops.
Who the heck is he? He claimed that his last name was BECAUSE OF Helloween. Fucking what?
Anyway, what a fucking amazing show! For starters, it was at the YouTube Theater, which is a weird little add-on to SoFi Stadium. Yesterday was my first time seeing it. Pretty impressive. The lake outside was a cool feature. I got there early, and there was a group of high school graduates taking pictures.
After sitting in my car for a little while, I walked toward the theater. Signage could have been better, but no problems. Came upon the merch tent and bought myself a shirt with the Keeper 2 cover on the front. There were a few food trucks, but I had already eaten (Fatburger!). The odd thing was that I don't remember going through any sort of metal detector. Didn't have take stuff out of my pockets, and no frisking. Really nice building. It's new, so it's still pristine. Bought myself a $19 beer (including tip, which, in retrospect, I regret adding for nothing more than pulling a can out of a fridge and popping the tab). Walked around a bit and then found my way to my seat. They had a pit with no chairs up front and then theater style seating. No carpeting, which I thought was odd. The floor was entirely concrete.
Hammerfall came on. Totally solid band. My initial thought was that it was odd that Ian Hill and Johnny Winter had formed a band together. Ha ha. Tim, I definitely picked up on the piped in vocals - especially when Edgar Winter would walk away from his mic mid-vocal. There was a lounge behind the middle seating area and I went and sat there for the last couple songs.
Helloween actually took the stage VERY quickly after Hammerfall finished (no more than 15 minutes). Just amazing from start to finish. A lot of the songs were relatively unfamiliar, except for listening to a playlist on Spotify on my way home from work and up to the concert. I was surprised how much I liked Andy Deris and the Kiske seemingly hadn't lost a beat. Holy crap! Some of the notes that guy hit! And the way they took turns and played off each other (with the occasional harmonization) was just brilliant! The three guitarists really complimented each other (unlike another 3-guitar band I know where one seems completely superfluous). I was really surprised how much Jericho material they played, and Forever and One was fucking beautiful. The highlight, of course, was Keeper, although the placement in the set kinda ruined Perfect Gentleman. I loved the intros they did - Andy and Michael introducing each other, and then Kai and Sacha Gerstner introducing everyone else. But the biggest takeaway was that these guys were having a lot of fun, and that's infectious. The only disappointment was nothing from Keeper 1. One of the best concerts I've been to in a long time!
Just a few pics/links (last one is a video):
https://photos.app.goo.gl/FZnZ8K6AyDGoZaMj6https://photos.app.goo.gl/pbiFtYwcQLWw8Han6https://photos.app.goo.gl/xqqqGLcgPySu4Jm27https://photos.app.goo.gl/Bm21YymfWLns7PJ99
Topic: Official Helloween thread v. Pumpkins United (Read 181377 times)
