Interview:

Q: Does all the experience you've collected through the years make a difference when you're writing songs?
A: (Andi Deris) Something I feel have changed our way of writing music the most is all the technique available today compared to the old days. Now this can of course influence you in both a good way and a bad way.
Since you nowadays can have almost a complete studio in your livingroom, you are much freer to do what you want, and especially when you want to. If I'm sitting in the couch watching some stupid sitcom, and I suddenly think of a riff I think could be cool, I'll just pick my guitar up and record it directly into the computer. This way I can send it to the rest of the band immediately, and we don't need to wait for the next band-meeting to give each other feedback. This saves a lot of time and work.
The down side is that you are more in charge of the production side as well as the artistic, which means that sometimes we just end up sitting a whole day turning knobs and pushing buttons just to find that one special sound instead of doing what we really love, which is playing music.

Q: You've been around for such a long time, and have been a major influence on an entire genre (editor's note: power metal). Where do you see Helloween going in the future?
A: (Markus Grosskopf) Personally, I would love to be able to define the genre again. Also, I would like to say to everyone that they misunderstood it all the first time around. It was all just a joke! There, now you know.
(Andi Deris) Right now, we are just very happy to have a new deal with a record company with a good management that takes care of all the little details for us, so that we can concentrate on making more music and play more shows, which is what we want to do really. The last one we had was filled with problems and we had to spend all our time discussing everything with suits who didn't understand metal.
Now we just want to go out there and tell all the fans that we are back; or actually, that we never really left.


Concert:

Two hours late, because of the immense rain, Helloween finally entered the stage before a filled Metalcamp site.
It still rained cats and dogs, but thankfully not as much as it had done a bit earlier. That would have been a killer.

The stage looked great with the two inflated pumpkins and the big gambling wheel; it all reminded me of their recent tour with Gamma Ray. The setlist also resembled the one from that time, but that's quite alright with me. I think it's the best Helloween setlist I have ever heard live. There is only one song which I don't know the title of, but it was one from their latest album, that much I do know.
The rest of the crowd also loved every minute of it, and it was almost as though the rain wasn't even there. Although, I do believe we have the answer to the song Where The Rain Grows. It's right here at Metalcamp, Slovenia.

Because of all the water, I was unable to take any serious notes about the concert, but two things that did stick to my memory was the medley (again built on Where The Rain Grows, Perfect Gentleman, Power, Keeper Of The Seven Keys and more), wherein the band had put a long, jazzy freeform jam-session, in which Andi Deris (vocals) introduced us to the band, as if no one knows who Helloween are. Ha.
The other thing was when in the finale, in Future World to be exact, they filled the stage with little pumpkin balls, inflated ones just like their bigger brethren at the sides of the stage. These balloons were happily handed out to the audience, and my biggest regret is that I was not able to catch one for myself.

In my opinion, this was an excellent show, with no need to change a thing. Lunah said it was the best show of the whole summer festival tour.

Setlist (incomplete):

Halloween
March Of Time
Eagle Fly Free
A Tale That Wasn't Right
If I Could Fly
Dr. Stein
Medley
Future World
I Want Out