Gamma Ray – Hell Yeah!!! The Awesome Foursome

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Produced by Dirk Schlächter

Or to give it its full title Hell Yeah!!! The Awesome Foursome And the Finnish Keyboarder Who Didn’t Want To Wear His Donald Duck Costume Live In Montreal. Catchy.

Although the majority of Gamma Ray’s touring in recent years has been the ‘Hellish Rock’ tour with fellow German power metal veterans, and front-man Kai Hansen’s former band, Helloween in support of their Land of The Free II album, prior to that they did played their first ever headlining tour of North America , and it’s one of these shows which forms the centrepiece of this double live album and the companion triple DVD set.

The audio from the Montreal concert, which accounts for eighteen of the 22 tracks here on the CD, and the whole of the first DVD, is outstanding. The drums are possibly a little high in the mix, but otherwise everything is clear and clean, which does show up some of the flaws in Hansen’s voice from time to time, but represents perfectly what Gamma Ray sound like live.

The concert itself has its negative points, like an over-long Heavy Metal Universe, which is a weak song at the best of times, and Hansen’s uncomfortable banter and less-than-stellar handling of the Ralf Scheepers-era material being the main things. The setlist is a big selling point, however. Sufficiently different to the Skeletons In The Closet double live album, and still just as career spanning with a few less obvious selections, it should please fans no end.

The DVD version of the main concert feature is a lot less satisfying. As well as editing and unnecessary effects the likes of which were first employed on Top of The Pops in the 1980s (shots which spin into the background to reveal a different one, split-screen angles, etc.), the picture quality is very poor. At times it’s like watching a YouTube quality digitised video clip. The same sound quality as the CD is still present, of course, but the other components are sadly lacking.

The same video quality also affects the otherwise excellent footage from the Wacken Open-Air festival on the second DVD, and the brilliant acoustic promotional set from Japan, although not so much in the case of the latter. The rest of the second disc is an incredibly uninteresting “Road Movie” from the Majestic tour (disappointingly the best video quality of the set), all of their music videos to date from 1990′s Space Eater up to 2007′s Into The Storm, a ‘Historay’ piece which is just compiled bootleg and interview footage starting from 1994 when Kai Hansen first took over as vocalist from Ralph Scheepers, and a massively pointless “Melbourne Playback”, which is a montage of excellent footage from a gig in Melbourne with Heavy Metal Universe playing over the top.

Interestingly, in some press conference footage at the Wacken festival at the end of the ‘Historay’ section Kai says he’d rather see that type of footage on DVD packages because it gets the viewer closer to the band than a polished live performance. While this may be true, most viewers would agree it’s infinitely more boring to watch, and while a live performance should be real and not too polished, it is the live performances fans buy these DVDs for. Not interviews that will only be watched once.

As their new album and touring has taken place since the main concert here was recorded they have also added four bonus tracks (the last four tracks on the second CD and all the live material on the third DVD), recorded on the Hellish Rock Tour in Barcelona earlier this year. The quality is actually slightly better than the Montreal show; the guitars are heavier and the drums are less prominent. They round out the album in particular perfectly and add some more recent tracks to what is already a fairly comprehensive career spanning setlist.

All in, the CD version is an excellent live document for the fans. The song selection, band’s performance and sound quality are the major positives, which do outweigh the handful of negatives, and the bonus tracks make for an excellent overall package. The DVD should have been and isn’t. Either way, hopefully they won’t got out of print as quickly as some of their other releases seem to keep doing.

“ clear and clean ”

Tracklist:
CD1 – Welcome / Gardens of The Sinner / New World Order / Man On A Mission / Fight / Blood Religion / Heavy Metal Universe / Dreamhealer / The Heart of The Unicorn / Fairytale / The Silence
CD2 – Beyond The Blackhole / Valley of The Kings / Somewhere Out In Space / Land of The Free / Rebellion In Dreamland / I Want Out / Send Me A Sign / Into The Storm / Empress / From The Ashes / Real World
DVD1 – Welcome / Gardens of The Sinner / New World Order / Man On A Mission / Fight / Blood Religion / Heavy Metal Universe / Dreamhealer / The Heart of The Unicorn / Fairytale / The Silence / Beyond The Blackhole / Valley of The Kings / Somewhere Out In Space / Land of The Free / Rebellion In Dreamland / I Want Out / Send Me A Sign
DVD2 – Road Movie / Videos: Space Eater / One With The World / Gamma Ray / Rebellion In Dreamland / Send Me A Sign / Heavy Metal Universe / Eagle / Into The Storm / Live@Wacken Open-Air 2003/2006: One With The World / Last Before The Storm / Rebellion In Dreamland / Heavy Metal Universe / Somewhere Out In Space / Historay / Unplugged In Japan / Melbourne Playback: Heavy Metal Universe
DVD3 – Road Movie: Hellish Rock Tour / Into The Storm / Empress / From The Ashes / Real World

Written by Andy Lye
More: Live Albums, Live DVDs, Power Metal, Gamma Ray