Blind Guardian
November 21, 2015
The Grove of Anaheim- Anaheim, CA
German power metal band Blind Guardian released their tenth studio album Beyond the Red Mirror on January 30, 2015. Additionally, they announced their first USA tour in 5 years. The Grove in Anaheim, California was the Southern California stop for these power metal legends and fans lined up early outside for their chance to see them for the first time, or seeing them again after so long.
Just after 9pm, the lights went out and a packed venue erupted into a roar as the members of Blind Guardian made their way to the stage. Blind Guardian started their two-hour show with the first track from the new album, The Ninth Wave. The fans were in awe as the band played the intro to the song in true power metal style with melodies and guitars. The next song was Banish From Sanctuary from their second album, Follow the Blind. The third song on the setlist was the first of the fan favorites, Nightfall. Singer Hansi Kürsch would sing the song then hold out the microphone so the crowd could sing the chorus, “Niiightfaaall!” and it would sound beautiful whether you were singing along or letting the music flow through your ears.
Kürsch took a quick break to tell the crowd that it felt good to be back after such a long time and that they haven’t changed much since their last visit. It’s all thanks to their genetic German technology which sadly didn’t do so well on his hair. When the band played Tanelorn (Into the Void), Kürsch showed the crowd that his voice has maintained its power by beautifully executing the high-pitch notes in the song. After that song, the crowd started to yell out and request Majesty, one of 
the band’s best songs and one of the biggest fan favorites. Kürsch told the crowd that the only way they would play that song was if the entire venue yelled out for it. Kürsch asked the crowd one more time if they wanted Majesty. The crowd yelled as loud as they could and since Kürsch was happy with the fans’ response, the band went out of their way from their setlist to play Majesty for the crowd. Majesty was one of the big highlights of the show as you could see fans raising their horns, head banging, and sang along to the chorus “ohhh, Majesty!” whenever Kürsch held out the microphone. The show went on with another new track, Prophecies. The band played The Last Candle next and is one of the songs where the band lets the crowd interact more. When the song came to an end, the band stopped playing for a few minutes to let the crowd continuously sing the final line, “somebody’s out there…somebody’s out there”.
The next song would be appreciated by fans of the Lord of the Rings franchise. Kürsch made note that the song is about Frodo and Sauron and that song was called, Lord of the Rings. Now that the show was coming to an end, Blind Guardian picked one of their best songs to end their show. That song was Imaginations from the Other Side. Kürsch would hold out the mic and allow the fans to sing the chorus, “Imaginations from the Other Siiiide!”. The band left the stage and the fans stayed waiting for a possible encore set since they knew there were a number of songs they had yet to play. Surely enough, the orchestral intro to Sacred Worlds started and the band came back out for the first encore. The next song was another song from the new album, Twilight of the Gods. Blind Guardian finished their encore set with their hit, Valhalla. The band stopped at the end of the song to allow the fans to sing the final chorus of “Valhalla! Deliverance! Why’ve you ever forgotten me?” for a couple of minutes before finishing up the song and having the band leave the stage again as the show finished.
Fans stuck around once again as they started to yell out song names the band still had yet to play. After a few minutes, Blind Guardian came out once again to play a second encore set. The first song played was Into the storm. After that, the band played one of the song requests that fans had been yelling out throughout the night. Both guitarists came out with acoustic guitars to perform The Bard’s Song (In the Forest), the first of the Hobbit songs. Fans loved singing along and it sounded like one big happy family. For the final song of the night, Blind Guardian picked their most popular song, Mirror Mirror. This another song that fans had been waiting for and you could tell from the amount of head banging and raised horns that they were happy to hear this song finally. Fans would sing the whole song from start to finish and was the perfect finisher for this amazing two-hour power metal concert. Blind Guardian finished up the show, thanked and bowed to the fans and left the stage for final tour time leaving fans with huge smiles on their faces.
Review by: Misael Ruiz
