Let's remember before Sunday's show: Helloween blew up Midalidare in 2023

🎥 I recorded this entire concert personally, phone in hand, somewhere among the audience in Mogilovo. Three years later, days before Helloween once again take the same stage on Sunday, I decided to release the recording again – and I remembered why that evening stayed in my head for so long.

🎪 It was July 2, 2023, the last evening of the third edition of Midalidare Rock In The Wine Valley. The German heavy metal legends were closing the festival after Fortress Under Siege, Battle Beast and Epica, and the sun had long since set behind the vineyards of the Wine Valley.

⚡ Shortly after 9:30 PM, the familiar intro thundered, accompanied by an impressive visualization on the screens, and "Skyfall" from their latest album at the time soared into the night. Seven musicians appeared on stage: Andi Deris and Michael Kiske on vocals, Kai Hansen and Michael Weikath on guitars (Kai also providing additional vocals), Sascha Gerstner on third guitar, Markus Grosskopf on bass and Daniel Löble behind the drums. Grosskopf and Weikath have been part of Helloween since their founding in 1984 – a living link to the band's roots.

🔥 The set continued with "Eagle Fly Free", "Mass Pollution", "Future World", "Power", "I'm Alive", the medley "Metal Invaders / Victim of Fate / Gorgar / Ride the Sky", "Heavy Metal (Is the Law)" and "Forever and One (Neverland)". A guitar solo followed, before the hall... or rather the field, sank into "Best Time", "Dr. Stein" and "How Many Tears".

🎬 The audience didn't want to let the band go. The first encore brought rarely performed live tracks – "Perfect Gentleman", followed by a full performance of "Keeper of the Seven Keys" (around 16 minutes from the band's second studio album of the same name, usually only heard in abbreviated form live). The second encore closed the evening with the inevitable "I Want Out" – and with it, the third edition of the festival.

💬 I remember the feeling in the crowd that night – people who had seen Helloween at dozens of concerts around the world admitted that the three vocalists together on stage brought something special that's hard to recreate elsewhere. It was precisely that combination of three voices – Deris, Kiske and Hansen – that turned the evening into an event, not just another concert.

🍷 Three years later, Helloween return to the Wine Valley – again as headliners, again on the festival's final evening, this Sunday. If you weren't there then, the recording above is the closest thing to a time machine we have. If you were – let's see if you can recognize the moment you were screaming the loudest.

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