TOKYO TALES

If this is the first CD you are going to buy from Blind Guardian, forget it! I am very sure that you won't enjoy this live CD at all. First for all, the music of Blind Guardian is not something as melodic as you might have ever heard from Royal Hunt or as powerful as Helloween of Gamma Ray. Blind Guardian has built their own unique music characteristics in the vein of power metal fame. The unique characteristic lies in the way Hansi Kursch sing and most of their compositions are song or melody orientated, i.e. the vocal as melody brings the music forward and all rhythm section and guitar melody follow the vocal line. The way Kurch sings is something that we need to put special note. He sings with his inner energy and scream through his inner throat, singing medium to high register notes. It sounds like someone who is angry but combined nicely with the music.

However, if this is happen to be your first CD from the band, here is some tricks: Do not try to understand the music because I am sure you might not like it at first spin because most of the songs are not that catchy. What I can suggest is to get involved in the crowd's live vibes which I think are really uplifting. In fact, the crowd is much more crazy than those in vintage Deep Purple "Made In Japan" live album. In fact, I am quite surprised knowing that there must be a lot of die hard fans of Blind Guardian who watched this concert. Please also remember that this was 1993 before Dream Theater became the icon of progressive metal and Blind Guardian had acquired so much appreciation from their Japan fans-base. This is interesting really.

The crowd involvement in the show is very obvious and in fact you can hear they follow the band's singing and it makes it wonderful to enjoy this CD. For some of you, the music is probably quite fast but, bear with me, you will get used to it. If you are not yet familiar, just observe how crazy the crowd it is to sing together with Hansi Kursch. You can hear the crowd singing in almost every song the band plays, especially "Time What Is Time" and also the band's favorite live track "Valhalla". In fact, before the band plays this song, the crowd already scream "Valhalla! Valhalla! .". This is a major attraction enjoying this CD because the crowd singing is so dynamic and so lively that make me enjoying this album.

Overall, this is a very good live album by Blind Guardian with wonderful live vibes knowing the band was actually not that well known but I do not know how come the Japanese is very familiar with this band. Keep on proggin' ..!

Peace on earth and mercy mild - GW