Band : Gamma Ray
Album title : Hell Yeah!!! The Awesome Foursome – Live In Montréal
Label : Steamhammer
Distributor : SPV - CNR
Release date : 27/10/2008
Release : Double (live) CD

Since its conception in 1989, Gamma Ray has been graced by multiple successes: high chart positions, nominations for international awards, surprising victory in a renowned magazine’s “Reader’s Poll”, getting to the cover on printed magazines…the only thing former Helloween man Kai Hansen and C° still had on their wish-list is have a successful North-American tour of their own (they’d toured in the US before as a support band, but were really anxious to go over there as a headliner).
This was finally achieved when the band did their Majestic Tour during 2006. With no idea of what to expect, one might say the response from the audiences was overwhelmingly positive: tickets sold extremely well, and the atmosphere was amazing night after night. No wonder the band decided to document the tour with a top quality video/ audio recording, and they did so at Montréal (Quebec, Canada) on May 6, 2006. What with the band’s fans having pushed them for such a long time to finally get a live recording out on DVD (something the guys never were able to take time out for), you can imagine this release to be a highly anticipated one (took ‘em long enough to get it out on the streets, by the way)!

Well, we didn’t get the DVD yet, so that’s talk for later (if at all), so for now we’ll concentrate on the audio CD (the band’s third live album after 1994’s The Power Of Metal and the more recent Skeletons In The Closet)…or better: CDs (plural, for being two). Disc one opens with a moody intro, and set opener “Gardens Of The Sinner” (from the 1999 Power Plant album) immediatelly sets the positive mood with the crowd! The guys [lead singer/ guitarist Kai Hansen (resumed his lead singer role in 1994, after original singer Ralf Scheepers left to form Primal Fear) accompanied on stage by guitarist Henjo Richter (joined 1997), bassist Dirk Schlächter (guitarist from 1990 to 1997, when he switched to bass), and drummer Dan Zimmermann (also in the band since 1997) were joined on stage by keyboardist Eero Kaukomies (from a Finnish Gamma Ray cover band)] continue with “New World Order” (off 2001’s No World Order) and “Man On A Mission” (off 1995’s Land Of The Free) before turning their set to the then current Majestic album’s material and renditions of “Fight” and “Blood Religion”. During the lengthy “Heavy Metal Universe” (off Power Plant again) Hansen gets to play about with the audience a bit (hey, you’ll have to check it out to understand what thàt means), and then goes back in history to play “Dreamhealer” of their 2nd album Sigh No More (1992). The ensuing “The Heart Of the Unicorn” is a return to the No World Order album, and then the guys go for a slightly calmer passage by letting the instrumental “Fairytale” (again off Land Of The Free) be followed by the moody “The Silence” (from the 1990 debut album Heading For Tomorrow), with Hansen doin’ his very best to make his voice emmulate the endeavours of a soprano singer (you gotta héar it to believe it)! This concludes the first disc with a total of 11 tracks and a listening time of almost 61 ½ minutes!

Disc two opens with three songs off the Somewhere In Space (1997) album, with a very explosive “Beyond The Blackhole” followed by the somewhat calmer “Valley Of The Kings” (well, at least in the opening sequence, because after that the song picks up pace somewhat, eh!), and the equally adrenalized title song off that album. The band then apparently took a short break, but only to come back and bring four encores : “Land Of The Free” (off the same album), “Rebellion in Dreamland” (an exclusive to the 1995 EP by the same title), and (after leaving the stage a second time for a couple of minutes) a rendition of Helloween’s “I Want Out”, plus the finale “Send me A Sign” (also off Power Plant).

With a playing time of just over 104 minutes, that would’ve meant the original live recordings coùld’ve been spread over two 50-minute discs, by Gamma Ray have prefered to wait untill they had some more high-quality recordings (this time with Alessio Gori on the keyboards, if I’m not mistaken) to make the second disc more interestingSo, from their Land Of The Free II Tour (our promo copy didn’t exacly give the necessary info, but from Hansen’s greeting its easy to determine that the session was taken from a show in Barcelona)., you get no less than 4 live renditions off that 2007 album with “Into the Storm”, “Empress”, “From The Ashes”, and “Real World”, adding a good 20 ½ minutes to that second disc!

This September of last, the guys ventured off for a tour in Russia, following that up a forthnight later with yet another North American tour…and they’ve already been gathering ideas for a new studio album due for release early next Summer! Something to look out for, but meanwhile the fans can still enjoy listening to this live album for a while…maybe even look out for the DVD? As you may already know, I consider live albums to be somewhat of “Best Of” recordings, so there’s no rating!

Tony.