Helloween with Jag Panzer, Beyond The Embrace and Hanker

Overall, a great show and a great crowd in a quite packed Medley in Montreal (I'd say probably 1500 people).

HANKER began the bill at 7:00 PM and got about a 30-min set. They delivered, as usual. You can see the band is together for a long time, they got a good stage presence and Pascal (singer/guitarist) interacts very well with the crowd. They played these songs, not in that order though: Ad Patres, Hail To You, You Won't Live Eternally, Disturbing The Brain and Let Me Out (new song from the upcoming album in 2004, that sounded very good).

I won't talk about BEYOND THE EMBRACE 'cause I really didn't care about their performance, saved for certain parts of certain songs, where the vox was more melodic... Otherwise, the screaming vox bugged me...

JAG PANZER... What can I say? They just ruled the place. Harry Conklin has got the powerful voice and Chris Broderick is a monster guitarist that can shred with the best of them. Why he doesn't get more recognition is beyond me. They got a 50-minute set (much to my pleasure, as they were probably my main reason to attend the show) and played these tracks, not in this order though: Fate's Triumph, Black, Iron Eagle, Take To The Sky, Shadow Thief, Chain Of Command, Tyranny, Frozen In Fear, Viper, The Moors. I finally had the chance to say hello to Mark Briody after the show and he was very friendly.

I'm not the greatest fan of the latest HELLOWEEN album, but I have to say the new songs sounded quite good live and fit well with the older stuff. The band played great, all musicians seem to be really into it, especially Deris who smiled all the show and bassist Grosskopf who was very energetic on the stage. Weikath smoked a ton of cigarettes and was quite static, but that's what I expected from him after reading some other reviews. Sure, Deris' kind of crowd's singing competition' was a bit too long, but otherwise, he sang well and proved to be a fine frontman. He even said some words in French to please the crowd here... They played this setlist:

1. Starlight
2. Murderer
3. Keeper Of The Seven Keys
4. Future World
5. Eagle Fly Free
6. Hey Lord!
7. Forever And One (Neverland)
8. Open Your Life
9. Dr. Stein
10. If I Could Fly
11. Back Against The Wall
12. Power
13. Sole Survivor
14. I Can
15. Where The Rain Grows

Encore:

16. Sun 4 The World
17. How Many Tears

Again, I have to say I'd have preferred more stuff from The Dark Ride, which is now probably my fave Helloween album (as only If I Could Fly was played), but it was my first time ever seeing them and they didn't disappointed.

Guillaume Labrecque