Helloween Brings their 3 Hour Masterpiece 'Pumpkins United Tour' to HOB Las Vegas

Sep 30, 2018

2 min read

HELLOWEEN brought the Pumpkins United World Tour to our city of sin, with members Kai Hansen and Michael Kiske re-joining the band on the world tour that finally came to North America (only 6 scheduled US dates) and the first show for this leg of the tour kicked off in Las Vegas at the House of Blues.

Pumpkins United World Tour is a reunion of original vocalist/guitarist Kai Hansen and vocalist Michael Kiske, with original guitarist Michael Weikath and bassist Markus Grosskopf. This tour is the first time this entire lineup has played together since the late 80’s, and combined with vocalist Andi Deris (who has been with the band since the early 90's) and more recent additions Sascha Gerstner (guitar) and Daniel Löble on drums, made for an exciting night with three lead vocalists and three guitarists in tow for the night. Fans came out en masse for this first US show, with both floors packed at Las Vegas House of Blues. The stage was a full production of lights and a blowup pumpkin surrounding the drums, with a powerful light show and huge video backdrops that played clips throughout the show.

Kiske and Debris kicked off the close to three hour set, trading vocals on the extended version of “Halloween” to immediately blow the faces off the crowd right off the bat (pun intended). With barely a moment to take a breath, the two plunged in to “Dr Stein”, and then traded turns with lead vocals throughout the night. Hansen took a turn on the lead vocals for a triple play medly of "Starlight", "Ride the Sky", and "Judas", and again later in the set for “Heavy Metal is the Law”. The show also included a tribute to original Helloween drummer Ingo Schwichtenberg, with Daniel Löble playing an extended solo, while a vintage montage of photos of Schwichtenberg ran on video screens behind the drum set. It was an emotional tribute the the much loved original drummer, who was widely known as “Mr Smile”.

This new full line-up released an original song, "Pumpkins United", in October 2017, their first original material featuring Hansen since Keeper of the Seven Keys: Part II in 1988, and the first with Kiske since Chameleon in 1993. More recently, in August of 2018, the band announced that the tour line-up would continue, and that a live CD and DVD for the Pumpkins United World Tour would be released via Nuclear Blast in early 2019, followed by a new studio album to be recorded later that year for a planned 2020 release, with Weikath, Hansen and Deris acting as a "songwriting trio". Watch for news and keep up on info on the new album at the band's website HERE.