GAMMA RAY - Hell Yeah - The Awesome Foursome DVD/CD Delayed; New Gydget Available

October 13, 2008, 16 years ago

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Due to production difficulties GAMMA RAY's forthcoming Hell Yeah - The Awesome Foursome DVD/CD has been delayed. The new release dates via SPV/Steamhammer are as follows:

Germany/Austria: October 24th

Rest of Europe: November 3rd

USA/Canada: November 4th

Spain/Portugal/Great Britain: November 10th

View a new gydget below:

A recent press release for the title reads: Some events in the life of a metal act are simply the stuff that legends are made of: the first high chart position, the first nomination for an international award, a surprising victory in the readers’ polls of a renowned music magazine, the first magazine cover. GAMMA RAY have encountered all these highlights, so there’s very little left that this band hasn’t achieved or experienced yet. Their first own American tour, however, has been one of Gamma Ray’s declared targets for some years. Their Majestic tour fulfilled this dream for Kai Hansen (guitar, vocals), Henjo Richter (guitar), Dirk Schlächter (bass) and Daniel Zimmermann (drums): Gamma Ray conquered the United States and Canada in a surprise coup and have captured for eternity those magic moments on their brand-new Double DVD and Double Live CD Hell Yeah-The Awesome Foursome!!!

Recorded in Montreal in front of a wildly enthusiastic audience, the band present their impressive potential as a live force, keeping fans and media alike in suspense for two hours, leaving the stage at the end of a furioso performance like heroic gladiators: victorious, happy and celebrated frenetically. Hell Yeah!!! The Awesome Foursome Live In Montreal is scheduled for release on 27 October 2008 (Germany: October 24 / SA: November 4 ) on double DVD and double CD and features the slightly curious subtitle …And The Finnish Keyboarder Who Didn’t Want To Wear His Donald Duck Costume… More on this interesting subject later. The DVD in Europe will include a bonus DVD with 4 new songs played live in 2008 during the Hellish Rock World Tour.

Let’s start with the fact that Hell Yeah! includes not only the 120-minute Montreal concert with its 18 songs (among them classics such as ‘No World Order’, ‘Man On A Mission’, ‘Valley Of The Kings’, ‘Somewhere Out In Space’, ‘Land Of The Free’ and ‘Rebellion in Dreamland’), but also a Gamma Ray history, a worthwhile road movie and unplugged sequences featuring Kai Hansen and Henjo Richter in Japan. In addition, there are a total of seven video clips from different stages of the band’s career and two live cuts from the W:O:A shows 2003 and 2006. The package is rounded off by a 40-minute bonus DVD with recordings from Barcelona and a road movie shot during the ‘Hellish Rock’ tour in Spain. Adds up to impressive five hours plus of playing time altogether.

Band leader Kai Hansen looks back at Gamma Ray’s first American tour with pride and great joy, saying: “We had played in the States only once before, so this was our first headliner tour of America. Of course we had no idea what exactly to expect, but the reactions were overwhelming. The tickets sold extremely well, and the atmosphere was amazing night after night. What you see on the footage from Montreal is what we experienced at almost every show.” No wonder that Gamma Ray decided to document that tour on a top-quality DVD, making it a permanent fixture on their long list of previous releases. Hansen: “We had been thinking about releasing a live DVD for a long time, especially as our faithful fans had been nagging us about one for years. Unfortunately we’d never had the time to plan and realise such a large-scale project. Well, here you go! This is a DVD the way we like it: diverse and multi-faceted, featuring a musical cross-section of the Gamma Ray albums recorded by the current line-up since 1998. The road movie speaks for itself, and those nice little extras are great mementoes of our band history to date.”

But let’s get back to the question of how the humorous subtitle … And The Finnish Keyboarder Who Didn’t Want To Wear His Donald Duck Costume… originated. First of all: the keyboardist in question is Eero Kaukomies from Finland, who plays in the Gamma Ray cover band Guardians Of Mankind from Helsinki and supported Gamma Ray during their whole American tour. Hansen: “During the tour, Henjo suddenly noticed that Eero has a somewhat duck-like walk. So the crazy idea developed to make him wear a Donald Duck costume at the show in Montreal and present him to the audience. Naturally, this great suggestion didn’t meet with much enthusiasm from Eero, and the whole thing became a running gag.” Hansen adds with a wink: “By the way, the ‘awesome foursome’ refers to Henjo, Dirk, Daniel and myself, in case you were wondering.”

And now all that’s left to say is that Gamma Ray will have embarked on another tour by the time Hell Yeah!!! arrives at the stores, adding more legendary performances to their band history. They will travel to Russia at the beginning of September and are scheduled to go to America and Canada again a fortnight later. And the rest of the year? “We are collecting ideas for our next studio album”, Kai Hansen gives away. “Quite a few of them have already piled up, so come autumn we will probably begin to sort through them and go to the studio in January 2009.” Sounds like everything should be set for a new studio album by early next summer. Hell Yeah!!! is a perfect appetizer to fuel your anticipation!

DVD Tracklisting:

DVD 1 - Montreal-Show 2006

Tracklist:

'Welcome'

'Gardens Of The Sinner'

'New World Order'

'Man On A Mission'

'Fight'

'Blood Religion'

'Heavy Metal Universe'

'Dreamhealer'

'The Heart Of The Unicorn'

'Fairytale'

'The Silence'

'Beyond The Blackhole'

'Valley Of The Kings'

'Somewhere Out In Space'

'Land Of The Free'

'Rebellion In Dreamland'

'I Want Out'

'Send Me A Sign'

Total Running Time: Approx. 120 minutes

DVD 2

Road Movie:

- Documentary from the Northamerican Tour

Video Clips:

- 'Space Eater'
- 'One With The World'
- 'Gamma Ray'
- 'Rebellion In Dreamland'
- 'Send Me A Sign'
- 'Heavy Metal Universe'
- 'Eagle'
- 'Into The Storm'

Live At Wacken Open Air 2003

- 'One With The World'
- 'Last Before The Storm'

Live At Wacken Open Air 2006

- 'Rebellion In Dreamland'
- 'Heavy Metal Universe'
- 'Somewhere Out In Space'

Historay:

Over the years private movies, backstage scenes and live performances

Unplugged:

Kai and Henjo unplugged in Japan

Total Running Time: approx. 156 minutes

DVD 3 (Bonus, only Europe)

4 Songs of Land Of The Free II live in Barcelona during the Hellish Rock-Tour

with Helloween in January 2008

Tracklist:

'Into The Storm'

'Empress'

'From The Ashes'

'Real World'

plus Backstage-Scenes, Soundchecks, etc...

CD tracklisting:

CD 1 Tracklist