Having scored highly in both the HardRockHouse.com's Writers and Readers 2005 Album Of The Year polls with their most recent 'Magic Never Dies' opus, Power Quest had proved with their performances both at Firefest II and, more recently, supporting Helloween that as well as cutting it on album they also have the chops in the live environment. Initially it looked like scheduling conflicts would preclude HardRockHouse covering this co-headline tour with Norweigan metaller's Pagans Mind, luckily however things panned out and so we found ourselves in Newcastle's Krash venue to cover the last of the five dates on the trek.

Unfortunately the same idea did not seem to be the most appealing Friday night entertainment on offer to the majority of Newcastle metal loving public as, perhaps due to extremely poor publicity, only a few dozen bothered to turn up. Well tough luck folks, gigs this good only come round once in a while. 

Opening, in near darkness, with the excellent 'Find My Heaven' (had the lighting guy forgotten to put fifty pence in the meter) and culling material from all three of their studio albums one of the most engaging features of a Power Quest live show is just how much the guys seem to enjoy their time on stage, or in the case of keyboard player Steve Williams in this instance, side stage due to major space restrictions. Rarely do these guys do anything but smile, and this enthusiasm translates into their playing and rapport with the audience. Yeah they have all of the chops, guitar shredding ability and stratospheric vocals normal in this genre of metal, but it this enthusiasm that sets Power Quest apart from so many others and makes the whole live experience so much more than simply a case of regurgitating recorded material. Whether playing to hundreds and thousands as at Firefest or with Helloween, or in this case to the few dozen hardy souls of Newcastle PQ set out to entertain and they do exactly that. Happy metal you could say.

I'll be honest prior to this show I only had a passing acquaintance with Pagan's Mind and I guess based on this performance this is my loss as the band turned in a stellar show. Far more intense than Power Quest the two bands never the less complimented each other perfectly.  This was metal with a progressive edge bringing to mind the likes of Dream Theatre and Queensryche and yes, Pagan's Mind are as good as that. In vocalist Nils Rue they have a frontman who simply commands attention whilst guitarist Jorn Lofstad combines the necessary shred skills with a fine melodic touch in his solos.

Highlights of the set were 'The Celestial Prophecy' and 'Enigmatic Mission', both taken from the most recent Enigmatic Calling album and also the exquisite 'Through Osiris Eyes'. However if the main portion of the set was good the encore proved equally enthralling, if for different reasons. As with many end of tour gigs there was a party atmosphere prevalent and the two bands joined forces to run through a mini set of metal classic that was both chaotic and compelling at the same time. Space was very much at a premium as everyone piled on stage for runs through Deep Purple's 'Burn', Ozzy's 'Crazy Train' and Kiss' 'Rock And Roll All Nite' before finally running out of steam with an abortive shot at Maiden's cold war anthem 'Two Minutes To Midnight'. With the guitar rig well and truly blown, the stage groaning under the weight of the combined talents and some sore necked punters at the front that was all folks.

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