GAMMA RAY, MASTERPLAN

I´ve been expecting to see Gamma Ray live for quite a long time, therefore when I knew that they were coming to Mexico city, and bringing Masterplan with them!, I bought my concert tickets almost immediately. Three months had to pass before I could witness the stage power of Kai Hansen´s band.
We came there two hours before the concert started and as we listened to Edguy´s Burning Down the Opera on the speakers I met with an old friend that I had not seen since Maiden´s last concert in Mexico city almost three years ago, a real metalhead indeed! And I´m really thankful to him since he introduced me to the glorious music of Iced Earth., but hey! That´s another story.

Exactly at 8 p.m. the lights went off and the introduction to Masterplan started sounding, the stage set was very simple, but music has always been the main point for me and excellent music is what these guys had for us!. Opening with “Spirit never die” and their first single “Enlighten me” they proved from the beginning that the label of super group is not wrong at all, I remember drummer Uli Kusch´s last presentation in Mexico with Helloween and believe me, he was playing even better and with great passion as well . Roland Grapow´s solos were heard loud and clear the man looked more than happy; he and singer Jorn Lande were impressed since we all knew the lyrics to the songs almost word by word., by the way, did I tell You the hell of a singer he is?, man! He can reach all the high notes heard in their debut album, if you haven´t listened to it yet I strongly recommend you to get It, awesome!

The best part in Masterplan´s show came when Roland started playing the riff from the immortal anthem “Smoke on the Water” just to stop when everyone was ready to sing and start playing the notes from “Man on the Silver Mountain”, my God! I swear over all that´s sacred that only the duo of Blackmore/Dio could have done it better, the voice of Jorn is without a single doubt one of the best in the business right now, they followed that classic with a nice old Helloween songs Medley including “The Chance” and my favorite tune from the Dark Ride “The Departure (Sun is going down)”. After playing most of their album in a one hour set they said goodbye, my impression is: the future shines bright for Masterplan.

The main dish was minutes away and we were all very excited, lights off! And Gamma Ray says “Welcome”! I could not believe my eyes! The Godfather of Power metal was just meters away from me! And with him guitar master Henjo Richter unleashed one of the best metal shows I´ve seen this year, following the first song came “Gardens of the Sinner” and then “Rich and Famous”, by this moment it was clear for me that they were going to play the “Skeletons in the Closet” set, having bought this CD a few weeks earlier (See review in the CD reviews section) I found it cool, even though I really wanted to hear the classics.

The Show continued with songs like “Heavy Metal Universe” (during a sing along in this song Kai asked the girls to show their breasts during the word “Universe” he said that they always try that and It never worked, it was no different in this show) , “The Heart of the Unicorn” and “New World Order” among others and the first half ended with a superb drum solo from Daniel Zimmerman.

In the second part of the show I was expecting more of the rarely played tunes, but after returning to the stage they went on immediately with the classic “I want out” and the next “Future World” both songs paved the way for better known songs like “Land of the Free”, “Man on a Mission”, “Rebellion in Dreamland” and although the 3,000 people gathered there demanded to hear “Ride the Sky” they apologized by saying that they had not rehearsed that song but instead went on with a nice combo of “Heading for Tomorrow/ Somewhere out in Space” that satisfied most of us.

The show was coming to an end and the members of the band seemed a little tired especially Mr. Dirk Schlächter who had already taken off his shirt, without announcing it the Keyboard intro from “Send me a Sign” (a personal favorite) came out of the speakers and they went into that tune with extraordinary energy, finishing the gig with a vengeance.
In the end we were as tired as the band but it was an excellent last concert of the year for the Mexican metallers!