GAMMA RAY
PPM FEST - PROG POWER AND METAL FESTIVAL
Lotto Mons Expo - Mons, Belgium
April 30 2011

After Rage, there was another German band playing: Gamma Ray!

I was so pleased to catch a Gamma Ray concert from their short Skeletons And Majesties Tour.

This tour is aimed to play rare songs from the huge Gamma Ray repertoire, their skeletons, as they call them.
They did something similar in 2002, with Skeletons in the Closet Tour, which I missed.

The Rays started with the intro from their first album, Welcome, followed by Empathy, from their latest record.
Classic until now, but surprises came right after, with the song Men, Martians and Machines!

Suprises went on and on, and some songs I've never thought I'll ever hear were added to the setlist, like the song that gave the name to the band: Birth Control cover, Gamma Ray.
Kai even remembered the Iron Saviour days by playing Watcher In The Sky!

The song Brothers was introduced as a tune that it never got the attention it should, which I totally agree.

Kai Hansen said they were playing an acoustic version of Rebellion in Dreamland on this tour, but that they were going to spare us of this as it was a festival.

By the way, he introduced it as a song from the Heading For Tomorrow album... it's actually on Land Of The Free.

By the way, I learnt later that Michael Kiske was a special guest on the previous night show in Switzerland, which was recorded for an upcoming DVD!
Can you imagine? He even sung Hellowen's classic Future World on stage with Gamma Ray!

It seems like Kiske's return to the stage will be going on, and it wasn't limited to the Avantasia concerts last winter.

But I noticed that Dirk Schlächter was quite calm during the show.
Take a look to the pictures of Gamma Ray at Wacken, Dirk usually runs and moves a lot on stage. Today he was very calm, playing his parts and singing backing vocals, bue he didn't seem to be enjoying the show.

Well, Dirk was actually sick and had to go to the hospital a few days later.
I hope he's alright now and ready to rock again!

There was one big problem with this show, and it was the response of the crowd.
Gamma Ray know they were taking a risk by playing this unsusual setlist.

Die-hard fans appreciated, as well as the folks who were discovering the band.
But there was many people that only wanted to hear the classics and stayed calm during most of the show.

The worst was at the end, after Gamma Ray played Brothers, everyone ran to the other stage instead of asking for an encore... When the Rays came back on stage to play I want Out, only half of the crowd was still there...

I loved Gamma Ray's setlist and, even if circumstances made that this wasn't their best show, it was an unforgettable one!

Some Gamma Ray friends were playing next: Edguy was next at the PPM Fest!

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Setlist Gamma Ray – Lotto Mons Expo - Mons, Belgium – April 30 2011

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