Helloween (with Beast in Black) – The Rave / Eagles Club – Milwaukee, WI – April 21, 2026

Helloween (with Beast in Black) at The Rave / Eagles Club, Milwaukee, WI

Review and photos by Jim Zons

My sister Jen is big fan of Finnish metal bands (who knew there was such a thing?!) so when we saw that the Finnish metal band Beast in Black would be opening for Helloween on their 40th anniversary tour in Milwaukee, I knew we had to be there!

The tour was making a stop at the historic Rave / Eagles Club in Milwaukee, a one-hundred-year-old venue with six concert stages of all sizes that hosts 250 concerts a year! This was my first visit, but after experiencing a concert here, I know I’ll be back!

Beast in Black was the opener, so we made sure we got in the door early enough to get a good spot up front. Beast in Black was founded in Helsinki, Finland in 2015 by guitarist and songwriter Anton Kabanen. They play an interesting mix of power metal, dance metal, 80s throwback sound, and even some electronic music. On their current US tour, Kabanen chose to stay in Finland working on the group’s fourth album, so filling in in Milwaukee was guitarist Daniel Freyberg (who apparently had to learn the entire set in four days!) along with bassist Máté Molnár, lead vocalist Yannis Papadopoulos and drummer Atte Palokangas.

Perhaps since they were touring with Helloween, Beast in Black kept their set a fairly heavy mix of tracks from their first three studio albums, including “Power of the Beast,” “Die by the Blade,”  “From Hell with Love” (title track off their second album), “One Night In Tokyo” and maybe their biggest hit, “Blind and Frozen.” Clocking in at almost a full hour of music, it was a pretty long opening set of great metal music!

Next up: Helloween. Founded in Hamburg, Germany in 1984, Helloween is considered one of the most significant European heavy metal bands of the 1980s. They released 17 studio albums and have been touring almost non-stop since the 1980s. They have gone through a number of lineup changes, with only bassist Markus Gorsskopf and guitarist Michael Weikath as original members. However, two bandmates have been members of the band since recording Keeper of the Seven Keys in the late 1980s: vocalist Michael Kiske and guitarist Kai Hansen (although they left and later rejoined the band in 2016). They were joined on stage by vocalist Andi Deris, guitarist Sascha Gerstner and drummer Daniel Löble.

Helloween’s stage presence is over the top with a wall of guitar sound filling the Rave! The set started off with 1988’s “March of Time” and took the packed house in Milwaukee through 40 years of metal masters. Songs like “We Burn,” “Ride the Sky,” “Hell Was Made In Heaven,” and “I Want Out.” The video wall background on stage reminded me a little of Rob Zombie, but the music was all heavy metal with an epic quality that no other metal band can match. Helloween hit after hit filled the venue: “Heavy Metal is the Law,” “Eagle Fly Free,” “Halloween,” ending with “Power,” and of course “Keeper of the Seven Keys.” This was one of the longest headliner concerts I’ve seen in awhile; Helloween played for almost 2 hours and 20 minutes!

It was a great evening filled with European heavy metal music at an awesome venue! Don’t miss Finland’s Beast in Black or Germany’s Helloween if they make a tour stop near you!