Edguy

Live at The Key Club

Hollywood, CA 10/26/2008

Review by Travis Baumann

Edguy were the special guests of Kamelot on the last leg of the "Ghost Opera" Tour. Edguy hail from Germany and specialize in anthem style metal similar in sound to Judas Priest, Iron Maiden and Blind Guardian.

They take things to a slightly different extreme however in that they specialize in tongue in cheek, all out fun metal songs that are easy to sing along to even if it is your first time hearing them. I had only listened to certain songs by them but had a good idea of their sound.

Even if familiar with them, I did not expect such a fun and energetic show. I would say that Rammstein asside, I have never seen such an in-key and enthusiastic sing-along session as this show.

Tobias, the lead singer whipped the crowd up into a hilarious "left versus right" sing-off after which, he had complete sway over his audience all night.

Aside from stirring the audience up vocally, he spent a good amount of time between each song telling really funny stories or making commentary that had me laughing time and again.

All of the other band members, which consisted of two guitarists, a bassist, and a drummer, wore huge grins on their faces the entire show unless they were singing backup vocals, which they did on most of the chorus sections.

The band was immensely energetic and never stopped moving and switching off sides of the stage as they played.

Several songs into the set, Tobias said they were now going to do their signature song which turned out to be "Superheros". Of course the audience went nuts and sang along to every word.

Tobias later said he was going to play guitar on the next song.  He didn't actually strap on a guitar but went up to one of his band members and took a pick and played a few chords on their guitar. He said "I wrote this one for Jimmy Hendrix but he was dead" and played a few chords from one of Hendrix's songs. Everyone cheered. Then he said, "I wrote this one for Hendrix too, but he was still dead."  he then played several chords from one of Edguy's hit songs and everyone started cheering and screaming. He then threw the pick into the audience that sparked off a minor riot on the floor as all the fans battled to get a hold of "the only guitar pick Tobias used all night" as the band took up where he left off.

Edguy had gone on a little early but with all the witty banter, sing alongs and fun stuff their set-time flew by and soon he said they were running out of time and they had reached the point of their last song. Everybody aware they had only a little while left to enjoy Edguy broke into a huge mosh pit slamming the entire lower floor area back and forth.

Tobias then made an announcement about t-shirts for sale downstairs which prompted a dozen or so vintage Edguy t-shirts to be waved like flags. "Those are old! We got paid for those two years ago. I want all of you to go down and by no less than five t-shirts each... we all need new cars when we get back to Germany".

They left the stage but were only gone for a second and came back out. Tobias said they were short on time so they were going to speed up the play of things and just do the encore already. They did a great job on the encore selections which sent the audience into roaring approval and invoked another mosh-pit.

Since the Mexicali concert in Mexico got canceled this was the last show for Edguy before they return to Gemany and Tobias said this was one of the best audiences of the whole tour. He then immediately said he says that every night so not to get to big of heads over it. He then promised they will be back in Los Angeles in 2009.

I would have to say, for not being a hardcore fan of theirs to begin with, they put on an immensely entertaining show and won me over with their light-hearted, have-fun style of metal music.

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Edguy

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