German metal legends Helloween have reunited with vocalist Michael Kiske and guitarist/vocalist Kai Hansen for the Pumpkins United World Tour. The first show of the tour took place on October 19th at Escena in Monterrey, Mexico. Fan-filmed video from the show can be seen below. When the footage originally surfaced, however, many fans cried foul and accused the band of using backing tapes for Kiske's voice. In an interview with Jump Metal, Hansen revealed that the band did indeed use some playback for that first show.

Hansen: "We had to make a choice, because Michael was really feeling pretty bad. And he said, 'I don't know if can do it.' So we said, 'Okay, we have a backup voice for him.' Normally it's only used for your own in-ear, for parts to get some more control, but this time we said, 'Okay, there are some passages that are really hard for him to sing, and we might… if the sound engineer realizes, he can use that as well. So maybe he did sometimes. But I think it's fair enough. I mean, he really tried very hard, and for one thing, we really did not want to cancel the show, so he was really singing and giving all the best he could. He was prepped with medication, of course, so it worked halfway well, but there were certain parts that were replaced, and, honestly, yep, we stand to that; I think we made the right decision to do it that way."

Pumpkins United tour schedule:

October
25 - Gran Carpa de las Américas - Bogota, Colombia
28 - Espaço das Américas - São Paulo, Brazil (Sold Out)
29 - Espaço das Américas - São Paulo, Brazil
31 - Pepsi On Stage - Porto Alegre, Brazil

November
2 - Estadio Luna Park - Buenos Aires City, Argentina
3 - Teatro Caupolican - Santiago, Chile (Sold Out)
5 - Teatro Caupolican - Santiago, Chile (Sold Out)
10 - Samsung Hall - Zurich, Switzerland
11 - Porsche-Arena - Stuttgart, Germany (Sold Out)
12 - Zenith - München, Germany
14 - O2 Academy Brixton - London, United Kingdom
15 - Zénith Paris La Villette - Paris, France
18 - Medionlanum Forum - Milan, Italy
20 - 013 - Tilburg, Netherlands
24 - Ruhr Congress - Bochum, Germany
25 - Tipsport Aréna - Prague, Czech Republic
26 - Aegon-arena - Bratislava, Slovakia
28 - Hala Koło - Warsaw, Poland
30 - Black Box - Helsinki, Finland (Sold Out)

December
2 - Partille Arena - Partille, Sweden
4 - Tempodrom - Berlin, Germany
9 - Wiznik Center - Madrid, Spain
14 - Arena Armeec Sofia - Sofia, Bulgaria
15 - Romexpo - Bucharest, Romania

March
18 - Zepp - Sapporo, Japan
21 - Zepp Bayside - Osaka, Japan
23 - Zepp - Tokyo, Japan
24 - Zepp - Tokyo, Japan
25 - Zepp - Nagoya, Japan

Helloween’s “Pumpkins United” track is available via Helloween.org as a free download. Watch a lyric video below:

Pre-order the 10" vinyl single now (release: December 8th) here.