On the day of this show, I got a call from Joerg Zaske, the tour manager for Hammerfall/Edguy trying to arrange interviews with both bands starting around 7:00 p.m. Seeing that I wouldn't be able to leave for the show until 6:30 at the earliest and the fact that I had well over an hours drive, I told him that it was going to be tough for me to get there much before 8:00. He said he would try to see what he could do for me when I got there. Arriving right at 8:00, I tried many times to reach him only to find out the next day that he had cell phone problems. I was a bit disappointed at not being able to get interviews but I was still excited about seeing two of my favorite power metal bands, Hammerfall and Edguy. Edguy had played in Canada before (Montreal and Quebec City) but this was their very first Toronto show. For Hammerfall, this was to be their first appearance ever on Canadian soil.

Walking into the theater just as the opening act Into Eternity blazed into their set, this was to be my first real experience with this band. Hailing from Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada, these guys are really starting to make a name for themselves internationally. I was impressed with just how technical their music is and it can best be described as progressive metal that has extreme metal, death metal and even thrash metal elements. Lots of voices are used with a mix of clean and very deep gutteral death metal vocals. I'm not a big fan of extreme metal and especially the deep growl style vocals but they have a very tight sound and seem to know exactly what they want to get across musically. A sort of progressive, death, extreme metal chameleon, they're an interesting band and got the crowd primed quite nicely for the rest of the evening.

After a quick changeover; definitely made easier by the fact that all the bands used the same drum set and amp cabinets, minimizing the amount of equipment, mics etc. that have to be set up for each band, Edguy stormed the stage after the taped intro "Ladies and gentlemen....welcome to the freak show!!", the intro to their Hellfire Club album and ripped into Mysteria. Up next was Navigator from the same album and both songs sounded great. Other tracks from Hellfire Club included The Piper Never Dies (my personal fav from the album), Lavatory Love Machine and King Of Fools which was the encore. Nothing was played from the Mandrake album, Kingdom Of Madness nor Savage Poetry. I understand Savage Poetry and Kingdom Of Madness but Mandrake was the album before Hellfire Club and not one track was played from it. It was quite clear that they were out promoting Hellfire Club album primarily and why not.....it's a great album!!. Babylon and Land Of The Miracle were the only two from Theater of Salvation with the latter being introduced as a pussy, boring, candy-assed ballad by Tobias Sammet. They nailed that song and had the whole crowd singing along. Seeeing that much of Edguy's material has very richly layered vocals and choruses, many of the tracks were a bit weak on the backing vocals side but Land Of The Miracle was perfect even with the vocal rounds at the end....spot on!! The only track from Vain Glory Opera was the title song and it went over very well with the crowd as well. I was hoping for the track Avantasia that they've been know to do live once in a while but it was not to be. Tobias is a very energetic front man, really has a sense of humour and knows how to work a crowd. He called upon everyone near the back of the theater (near the bar area) to come down to fill in the gap between the back of the crowd on the floor and the next level. He even went so far as calling them "retirees" and hurled other insults to lure people down front...I think it worked!! Edguy were very appreciative of the response and vowed to return within a year, much to the delite of everyone there.

I like Hammerfall very much but for me personally, it was Edguy that I really wanted to see the most. I was pleasantly surprised that as good as Edguy was, Hammerfall was even better. Joacim Cans' voice was a lot stronger than I imagined in a live setting and after the opening arpeggios of Secrets, they ripped full boar into the lead off track from their latest album Chapter V - Unbent, Unbowed, Unbroken. Without missing a beat, they ripped into Let The Hammer Fall from Legacy Of Kings and then the track Hammerfall from their debut, Glory To The Brave. What a way to start a show!!!....it was smokin'. Other tracks from the new album included Bloodbound and Hammer Of Justice. Heeding The Call was one of the true highlights for me. One of my all-time favorite Hammerfall songs was just cooking live especially the guitar work mid song. Joacim had everyone singing on this one. The Renegade album was represented with Templars Of Steel, the first encore as well as the track Renegade with Hearts On Fire (another encore song) and Riders Of The Storm being the only tracks from Crimson Thunder. Another highlight was the track Glory To The Brave from their debut album of the same name. Joacim introduced it a pussy, boring, candy-assed ballad just like Tobias did for Land Of The Miracle but stated that even metal musicians need a break too!! The song sounded amazing with everyone singing and they stopped it mid-track for a little tom foolery with Stefan Elmgren making lots of noise and playing the opening chords to 2 Minutes To Midnight by Iron Maiden only to have his guitar shut off by Joacim proclaiming that his pedal board is not a jukebox!! He then played the main riff to Metallica's Enter Sandman which saw the rest of the band jump in to play a couple of verses before being silenced by Joacim again. They continued with Glory To The Brave without further incident. With the material they played, they covered every album and although I would've liked to have heard more material from Glory To The Brave and Legacy Of Kings, it was a well-balanced set with no useless guitar solos or drum solos. The band was very tight and the guitar work from Oscar Dronjak and Stefan Elmgren was fantastic. Magnus Rosen attacked his bass like a wild man and was all over the stage and drummer Anders Johanssen provided the thunder on drums all the while making it look easy. Hammerfall ended their show with band members proudly displaying Canadian flags that were thrown up onstage and Joacim Cans proclaiming that he couldn't figure out why in 8 years of touring, they'd never been to Canada before....especially with the response they got.

This is a great live metal package to see and they are currently making their way across the U.S. with a couple more Canadian dates later on. I was in touch with their tour manager by E-mail just the other day and he said that the Canadian audiences (Toronto, Montreal, Quebec City) that they've played to so far have been amazing!!! Are you guys in the U.S. up to the challenge?