Thanks for the fantastic-as-always concert review! I’m even less familiar with GR than Zig, so I’ll have to check ’em out.
Here’s one bit of trivia that your post touched on: when multiple bands in a show share equipment, we say that the source band is backlining. That implies that that band is providing all the primary equipment needed to make music onstage. See the rest here
Happy Independence Day 2024! Hope it’s not the last one!
My favorite albums from the classic 1990s version of the band are: Land of the Free, Somewhere Out in Space, and Powerplant. However, you can experience many of the hits from these albums as well as the earlier Ralf Scheepers albums on the Blast from the Past collection, which is a re-recording of 1990s songs with Kai singing on all of them. See the rest here
Thanks for that—it’s always a pleasure to read your in depth reviews! Gamma Ray is not a band that was ever really on my radar, but I know you are a long time devotee. I will definitely check some more out. What album should I start with?
Happy 4th of July! See the rest here
Gamma Ray/Induction
EX Theater Roppongi, Tokyo, Japan
May 7, 2024
I returned to the same venue where I saw In Flames and Kreator in February to witness Induction and Gamma Ray on a Tuesday night after work in May. Gamma Ray hadn’t played Japan since the 2015 Loud Park festival and I hadn’t seen them since they played a solo club gig in June 2014, so there was quite a bit of pent-up demand in the local market, and it showed: the assigned stand seats were sold out and the floor was very packed (although I could not confirm if the entire gig sold out). See the rest here
★★★☆ A throwback? Perhaps. But this album from Helloween-offshoot Gamma Ray also offers an updated take on some vintage power metal, with hints of Savatage, Queensrÿche, Blind Guardian, and yes Helloween. And Priest. And Queen? And to be honest, the album starts to overstay its welcome about two thirds of the way in. See the rest here
This work by Metalligentsia is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.