On 13.10.2022 Blind Guardian played in Hamburg within their Somewhere Far Beyond-Tour. Whereas the tickets to the Samael concert in Berlin had been my birthday present to Chris this year, the tickets to Blind Guardian were his birthday present for me. So, for the third time in 2022, we went off together to see Blind Guardian live at the edel-optics.de-Arena in Hamburg, Wilhemsburg. (Quick side note: the McDonald's close to the arena has been THE WORST branch I've ever been in. Seriously, don't go there!).
The edel-optics.de-Arena is a sports hall and while sport halls sometimes don't have the best sound, it was a great location for a concert of this size. Admission was very organised, there were no long lines and in the hall itself it was not too crowded. We got us some beers and started looking for a good place to stand. Admission started at 7 PM and the concert was scheduled to start at 8:30 PM. We arrived at around 7:30 PM and by then the first two rows were pretty closely taken. If you really wanted to stand in the first row, you could have managed, but this time it wasn't that important to me. So we settled on around row 5 on the right side of the stage and waited.
Blind Guardian played their tour without a support band and showed around 10 minutes of their 30 Years Somewhere Far Beyond Documentary instead on the curtains veiling the stage. After this trip down memory lane they started their set and of course the first ten songs were no surprise. Starting with Time What Is Time Guardian played all ten tracks from their Somewhere Far Beyond album. Compared to Samael who just delivered their songs without further ado Hansi Kürsch took all the time in the world to think of an introduction for each song. And he really enjoyed it. The whole band had a super positive and relaxed energy and seemed to have a good time. The sound was amazing. Right from the start the instruments and vocals had a good mix and Hansi really delivered. His voice has lost nothing of the power and range he had in 1992. I was most impressed with André Olbrich on lead guitar who played so perfectly and also Marcus Siepen on rhythm guitar as he is just the most relaxed and positive and likeable guitarist I've ever seen (ok, close tie with Farin Urlaub).
The crowd's first highlight was of course the Bard's Song and as it is customary most of the song was performed by the audience with Hansi only supporting.
My personal highlight was Lord of the Rings. Back in 2001 when I was a huge Tolkien nerd, this was a song I absolutely loved listening to. I acutally bought myself a Blind Guardian album - Nightfall in Middle Earth, to this day my only self-bought metal album ever. Expecting Lord of The Rings to be on Nightfall in Middle-Earth (Duh!), I was disappointed not to find this track on here and the album was soon banished to the back of my CD rack. Today I know I should have bought the 1990 album Tales from the Twilight World. Aaaaaanyhow, it was super nostalgic to hear this song live and I loved every minute of it.
In the encore Guardian stayed focused on the 90s. They played Nightfall and Time Stands Still (At the Iron Hill) from Nightfall in Middle-Earth (1998), Banish From Sanctuary from Follow the Blind (1989) and ended with the fitting track And the Story Ends from Imaginations from the Other Side (1995). Their only song from their current album The God Machine (2022) was Violent Shadows. So it was a real trip down memory lane and the audience loved to be back in those times. Most were really text safe and knew the lyrics by heart. There was so much cheering and clapping along and swaying to the music and the overall atmosphere was a happy one.
Of course, everybody was waiting for the last encore and after Guardian came back on stage for a third time to perform Sacred Worlds from their ninth studio album At the Edge of Time (2010), we finally got what we've all been waiting for. Valhalla!
After the audience had got it all out of their system, Blind Guardian added two more songs to the encore: Mirror Mirror and Majesty. I cannot imagine anyone would have gone home without those three songs at the end. It was a perfect ending, everybody was happy.
Blind Guardian took the time to say goodbye properly, they said their thanks and bowed, gave away picks and setlists and drumsticks and took pictures with the audience. When the lights came back on at around 11 PM the crowd left smiling and very orderly. I guess this is what a Blind Guardian concert will do for you. It fills your heart and spirit with uplifting metal that let's you leave feeling reinvigorated and ready to tackle the next day head-on. It was a great evening, thank you guys!
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