Also Big in Japan (Tokyo Tales - Blind Guardian)

Member Name: Frankingsteins

Product:	Tokyo Tales - Blind Guardian
Date:	22/02/08 (19 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Energetic performance from the band's early years.

Disadvantages: Lacks the variety of studio albums, omitting acoustic ballads and more progressive material.

'Tokyo Tales' is Blind Guardian's first live album, recorded during the tour for 'Somewhere Far Beyond' and featuring songs from the first four albums, making it vastly different to later live releases that focus more extensively on the late nineties material. Presumably without knowing it, the band released this album at just the right time, before their sound changed dramatically to incorporate more orchestral influence and eventually to follow lofty conceptual themes, so fans of Blind Guardian's early years as a Helloween-like speed metal band with fantasy leanings will find most of their needs catered for here. Most, but not all.

The only real problem with this album is a lack of variety, particularly in reflecting the continually advancing Blind Guardian sound. The acoustic classic 'The Bard's Song' is notably absent despite its prominence on the studio album being toured, and other songs requiring additional instruments outside of the core band members - the folk ballad 'Lord of the Rings' or the semi-symphonic 'Theatre of Pain' for example - are ignored in favour of fast heavy metal. While this is a shame, it's also refreshing to hear this more basic style, one that the band itself has started to return to in recent years after their more excessive and ambitious songs proved incompatible with a live format. This is old-school Blind Guardian performing at their best, and although the album's a little quiet, merely requiring a volume crank that you wouldn't have been able to resist in any case, it's a great way to absorb yourself for seventy minutes.

All of the songs here are great, mostly originating in the band's two most recent studio albums at that point (three from 'Somewhere Far Beyond' and four from 'Tales from the Twilight World') with two plus an intro from 'Follow the Blind' and only 'Majesty' from the debut, these older songs still being high quality, but tending to over-run with extraneous guitar solos and lack the more distinctive Blind Guardian touches of the later material. That said, the songs chosen are the very best from those albums, 'Banish from Sanctuary' and 'Valhalla' still being routine parts of the set-list today. The band's performance is flawless as expected, and it's easy to forget this is a live album at many points, until the crowd roars its appreciation or overpowers Hansi Kürsch in one great chorus after another.

Hansi's stage banter is a lot of fun and it really has to be said that it doesn't exactly catch him at his wittiest; he introduces the third track by delivering a long and clumsy explanation that the band flew into Tokyo "travelling by the night, so it was a - Journey Through the Dark!" Despite their roared enthusiasm, he feels the need to clarify, "and that's also the name of the next song," just to be sure. He does something similar later when comparing the eponymous 'Twilight Hall' with the room they're currently in, but the rest of the time he's clearly enjoying going along with the mood, voicing his appreciation and inciting the crowd to participate in the irresistible choruses that they were already going for anyway.

This is a solid live collection with no pretensions and no signs of studio tampering, fading out without concealment after tracks five and eight for whatever edits were necessary, and while it isn't a core essential for a Blind Guardian collection, the fact that it's so different from the later live releases means that it's still very worthwhile. It's not often that you'll hear 'Time What is Time' alongside 'Traveler in Time,' the first being stripped of its acoustic intro and getting straight into the thrashing riffs, and there's even a minor bonus in the cover of the Beach Boys' cover of 'Barbara Ann' at the end which is a lot of fun, and has sections of 'Johnny B. Goode' thrown in to boot. Fans of the band's later sound may be surprised or disappointed by this set-list and approach, but those who got into Blind Guardian through Helloween and Gamma Ray will be nicely catered for here.

1. Inquisition
2. Banish from Sanctuary
3. Journey Through the Dark
4. Traveler in Time
5. The Quest for Tanelorn
6. Goodbye My Friend
7. Time What is Time
8. Majesty
9. Valhalla
10. Welcome to Dying
11. Lost in the Twilight Hall
12. Barbara Ann

Summary: Blind Guardian's first live album (1993).