The signs of a good time had by all is when the echoes reverberate long into the night. For an hour after Blind Guardian exit the stage, the refrain “Valhalla, Deliverance, Why've you ever forgotten me” can be heard being sung by the dispersing masses as they meander away from the Academy down the Oxford Road corridor. It may not have made much sense to the glammed-up masses heading off to identikit soulless nightclubs, but it was an indication that Mancunia had a rare and thoroughly wondrous visitation from the Teutonic gods of power metal.

You see, Blind Guardian are like a fine wine in that they have matured and improved with age. This evening there is no feeling of going through the motions or that this is another tick box in a long list of musical must-do's. The show in Manchester was special for those who attended because it was special for the band and that attention to detail and dedication to the cause came across loud and clear when ROCKFLESH chatted to quintessential member Marcus Siepen before the show (interview here). This may be their first visit in eight years, but they are determined to make it a memorable one.

Openers The Night Eternal are a really interesting proposition. They feel like they have fallen from an alternative universe where Goth emerged from the new wave of British heavy metal as opposed to pop punk. They have the raw unsaleable power of early Iron Maiden, but it is laced with a down-tuned tempo that is ripped straight from the playbook of early Bauhaus and Sisters of Mercy. Gothic metal is an overused phrase, but it fits perfectly here. There is the gallop and urgency of metal but also the ethereal and swirling melancholic beauty of goth.

Set-wise, we are provided with an equal split between their haunting debut “Moonlit Cross” and their rather spiffing follow-up “Fatale”, which made number 22 in our end-of-year list for 2023. Whilst the rest of the band happily play around with the great big book of clichés list of heavy metal poses, frontman Ricardo Baum fits the persona of the tortured soul. He regularly falls to his knees mid-song and spends great portions of the set whaling admirably in several different prone positions. His voice is astonishing and is bizarrely reminiscent of early Joey Tempest in both its range and also its rawness.

It is obvious that the audience is here for one band and one band only, but the glacial intensity of The Night Eternal soon wakes them up. The reception they are afforded increases manifestly across the eight songs aired and Domino-like raised arms start to emerge across the venue. They bring a majesty and a touch of otherworldly melodrama to metal's usually stoic form. It is that emotion that spills out tonight, an emotion that will surely have propelled them onto many people's "must check them out" list.

This evening, we get the full gambit of Blind Guardian. We get moments where they are heavier than a very very heavy thing and we also get moments of fragile beauty. What they prove is that they are much much more than our small-minded stereotype of power metal. They demonstrate that done properly, the genre is about far more than faux tales ripped from the dungeons and dragons’ rulebooks accompanied by crescendoing keyboard flourishes. Quite simply they are a thinking person's heavy metal band.

Yes, there are fantastical tales to tell about the fall of the Nolder, but remember Blind Guardian were busy bringing Tolkien to life long before Peter Jackson decided there was money to be made converting New Zealand into Middle Earth. There is a seriousness and authenticity to their approach that means they come across as Arthur C Clarke compared to the Buck Rogers of other purveyors of big-budget widescreen power metal. But this doesn't mean that they are poe-faced about it. Hansi Kursch had a twinkle in his eye all night and happily jokes with the audience in an almost stream-of-consciousness level of humorous quips.

The set itself is immaculately and beautifully constructed. We get enough communal big moments to allow them the currency to play three new tracks and also to unearth a couple of rarities, including an exquisite ‘Skalds and Shadows’ where they seductively lean into their alter egos of wandering bards. It is obvious that this is an audience heavily invested in the band and there are plenty of moments where Hansi could just go and get a good book and sit backstage and leave us to it. He does very little during ‘The Bard’s Song’, apart from ensuring that we stay on time and in tempo. The vast majority of the track is sung as a choral refrain by the packed inhabitants of the Academy, and the grin on Hansi’s face can be seen from space. 

But it isn't just about those gentle moments of minstrel storytelling, Blind Guardian was as much influenced by Germany's instantaneous adoption of thrash as they are by tales of fantastical lands. New tracks such as ‘Blood of the Elves’ and ‘Violent Shadows’ have a rampant intensity to them but so do elder statesmen such as ‘Majesty’ and ‘Traveler in Time’. Pits start to emerge during both those tracks, and crowd surfers are plucked out a plenty by a security team not quite expecting them with this style of metal.

Everything this evening is bigger in scale and full of rampant bombasticity. That is true of the encore. ‘Sacred Worlds’ is an anthemic joy and yet again Hansi duets with the horde in front of him, allowing us to pick up most of the heavy work. ‘Bright eyes’ sounds as exquisite as it did when it first emerged 29 years ago but it is with ‘Valhalla’ that the evening just clicks over to another level. The front becomes a swirling mass of bodies and as one the Academy repeats back the clarion call that will haunt the streets of Manchester for the rest of the night. It is one of those startling moments where you realise that whilst this band may be unknown to those outside the venue getting along with their humdrum lives, to those in the room they mean everything. It is a spiritual awakening instant of entwinement between band and audience and it is absolutely astonishing. 

The evening concludes with ‘Mirror Mirror’ but really we have had our high point and anything beyond ‘Valhalla’ is just icing on the cake of delirium. This evening Blind Guardian are incredible because it is obvious that they still very much care about what they are doing. They give their all because they wanted Manchester to be special and you know what, they will do that all again tomorrow night in the next city because this is a band that still absolutely adores being in a band and that is really quite a rare commodity nowadays.

Check the “In The Flesh” page for more photos!
Blind Guardian, The Night Eternal