Songs Of My Life #16 - Helloween - Ride the Sky - 1985

Songs Of My Life #16

Throughout my final year of high school in 1987, our Year 12 was lucky enough to have an exchange student from Norway called Hans Hoie. He was a character was Hans, and he got on with everybody, but I guess he fitted in with our nerdy group best. Better yet, he was the bearer of heavy metal gifts from the Nordic lands. I especially remember a party at the Boneyard in Kiama Downs late that year, and as always we had our portable tape deck to listen to music. Hans had brought along an album called Walls of Jericho by a band called Helloween. And it was amazing. The opening track is this one, "Ride the Sky", a song that is still in my favourite ten tracks of all time. I can still see us on that night, the song blasting out of the tinny speakers, drinking and being amazed at the power and ferocity of the song and Kai Hansen's vocals.

One of the highlights of my life came 19 years later almost to the day, when I finally saw this song performed live by Gamma Ray (the band Kai Hansen formed after he left Helloween in 1988). Hans returned to Norway, and we traded letters and tapes of albums over the next couple of years, until he went in for his mandatory year of military training, and we lost contact. Whenever I listen to this song, I still think of Hans and those heady days of the conclusion of Year 12. 

Ride the sky!! \m/ \m/