I just HAVE to tell you about the INCREDIBLY AWESOME experience I had last Saturday evening, April 25, 2026!
For background, in a tie for first place among my favorite bands of all time is Beast in Black, a heavy metal band from Finland that formed in 2015. The lineup:
- Anton Kabanen – guitars, backing vocals, & keyboards (2015–present). The band's founder and recruiter. Finnish.
- Kasperi Heikkinen – guitars (2015–2025). Finnish. Departed the band suddenly in the middle of the current tour; replaced by Daniel Freyberg (2025–present), possibly for the remainder of the tour only.
- Máté Molnár – bass, backing vocals (2015–present). Hungarian.
- Sami Hänninen – drums (2015–2017), Finnish. Replaced by Atte Palokangas (2018–present). Finnish.
- Yannis Papadopoulos – lead vocals. (2015–present). Greek.
I gave each band the ol' college try. I found the first two's songs to be rather unremarkable--no offense to any Sabaton fans here--but I was immediately struck by the quality of Beast in Black. Each song was (and is!) very distinct. They are definitely heavy metal / power metal, but they aren't averse to mixing in keyboards and keyboard effects to achieve the exact sound each song demands for maximum quality. One or all of them must've been heavily influenced by anime as kids, because some songs draw inspiration from the manga Berserk, of which I know nothing, while another (Cry Out for a Hero) is unabashedly about Fist of the North Star, of which I know a little.
Anyway, as fantastic and memorable as the music is, the standout aspect of this band is most definitely the frontman and lead singer, Yannis Papadopoulos. His range is AMAZING. The very first song I listened to (Blind and Frozen), I thought it was a woman singing--I assumed the song was a collaboration with some other singer or band. Nope, Yannis just has that wide of a range. Despite my first impression, his voice can go just as deep as any other metal singer's and he can scream with the absolute best of them when necessary. Not only that, but refreshingly, he sings distinctly and clearly enough that you can actually understand every word! Needless to say, that's a rare quality in any band, heavy metal or otherwise.
I've watched a couple of Beasts in Black's live performances at outdoor music festivals before thousands of fans, and Yannis is a charismatic frontman who utterly dominates the stage. A consummate entertainer. As an aside, he's bald like me, so that may be another item of affinity. All of that rolled together puts me in utter awe of this guy. I'll admit it--I'm an abject SUPERFAN of his by any and every definition of the word!
Moving along, late last month my girlfriend and I were talking about Beast in Black and she happened to look at the Ticketmaster app to see if they were coming to North America anytime soon. Thank goodness she did so, for lo and behold, they were coming to Salt Lake City in less than a month! Although they weren't headlining this time, it nevertheless was a no-brainer for us to attend. V.I.P. tickets were the automatic assumption; money is no object when it comes to this band, no sir-ee.
The night of the concert arrived, and I was fortunate enough to find myself on the very front row, close to center stage. I knew I needed to show proof before any of you believed me, so here it is:
The lead singer, Yannis Papadopoulos. This is NOT zoomed in, so you can see how close I was.
Another shot of him.
During one break between songs, the frontman talked about how when they were getting their visas, the clerk asked him which part of America he was most looking forward to see. He told her it was Salt Lake City! Now, just like you, I assumed this was gratuitous and he said this to every city, but he immediately continued, "I don't say that to any other concert." According to him, she was a little surprised and asked him why, then he responded with something I can't quite remember. He continued by telling us that they all really enjoy basketball, so they went into the Delta Center, the home of the Jazz. They were soon stopped by security who asked, "How did you get in here?" They responded by saying, "We just walked in the door. No one was there." The security officer said, "The door was unlocked?" He replied with, "Yeah. It was wide open." Rather than kicking them out, security escorted them down to the court!
He then told us how they later climbed Ensign Peak, saying that the view of the valley all around was incredible (my word, not necessarily his).
Then the concert continued. Here are more pictures:
The drummer, Atte Palokangas. He was the first on stage and was quite charismatic, too. I zoomed in for this one; I wasn't THIS close!
The bassist, Máté Molnár. I zoomed in for this one as well.
Another zoomed-in shot, this time of the lead singer again.
Sadly, Anton Kabanen--the founder and 1/2 of the lead guitarists--wasn't there. During another break between songs Yannis explained that he was back in Europe putting the finishing touches on their fourth album which is due out this year. He also added that Beast in Black will be back to Salt Lake City to support it, this time as headliners! Obviously when that happens I'll be back in the front row with V.I.P. ticket in hand. (They had performed in Salt Lake City as headliners back in 2023, almost exactly a year before I discovered them.)
Here was their setlist, in order. Behold your introduction to Beast in Black:
- Power of the Beast
- Hardcore (not my favorite, so please don't judge them based on this song alone)
- Sweet True Lies (ibid.)
- Born Again
- From Hell with Love
- Enter the Behelit
- Die by the Blade
- One Night in Tokyo (one of my favorites!)
- Blind and Frozen (the very first song of theirs I ever heard)
- No Surrender
When it ended, the bass guitarist threw his pick into the crowd and the drummer threw his sticks into the crowd as well. Copies of the setlist were taped to the stage in various places, and the band members pulled them up, folded them, and threw them into the crowd. One copy fell in front of me and to the side, then the couple on the other side of me who were also there for Helloween and whom I'd told I was there only for Beast in Black kindly retrieved it and gave it to me. I thanked them profusely, of course. I let the aforementioned dad take a photo of the setlist at his request so he could look up the songs on YouTube. I also gave him my YouTube playlist of my favorite songs of theirs, explaining that there are several hidden gems that they didn't perform tonight. Here are the songs on said list containing said gems that weren't played. If the former songs didn't impress you enough, perhaps these will:
- Blade Runner
- To the Last Drop of Blood
- Dark New World (the song that got me hooked)
- Moonlight Rendezvous (someone REALLY needs to make a full-length movie out of this concept)
- Cry Out for a Hero
- End of the World (another of my favorites!)
- Broken Survivors (this really showcases the lead singer's range)
- Crazy Mad Insane
After a few songs I decided to hit the merchandise desk and see if there were any Beast in Black T-shirts or whatever that appealed to me. None of the designs tickled my fancy, but since the crowd was in the main hall I had the cashier to myself. Conversing a bit, it turned out she was originally from Finland too but had lived in Los Angeles for the past nine years. This job required her to travel with the band, so she knows all of them very well. Considering that two of them aren't even from Finland, I asked her about all the languages they speak, and to my surprise she informed me that other than a few words, the bassist and lead singer don't speak Finnish! The band members all communicate with each other in English. I imagine she'd refrain from saying anything different, considering her job, but for what it's worth she vouched for the members and said they were all really good guys (again, my words, not necessarily hers, which I don't quite remember). Awesome!
Then it was back into the main hall to listen to some more Helloween. After quite some time I typed a message into my phone and showed it to my girlfriend. I wrote, "We can leave anytime you want to." She responded that she wanted to stay to the end. Okay, that's cool.
THANK GOODNESS she did so, because just a little while later something ABSOLUTELY AMAZING happened: I looked around again, and to my left, not five feet away, stood the lead singer of Beast in Black, Yannis Papadopoulos himself!! He'd changed out of his frontman attire that you saw in the above photos (and the ornate leather armor boots that you can't see) and was now wearing a plain T-shirt, jeans, and regular shoes--totally nondescript. He was just standing there, bopping his head to the beat a little, looking all the world like just another fan and not the heavy metal god who had nearly blown the roof off the auditorium not two hours previously. Seeing the stark difference was, to me, way beyond surreal. Yea, just like Alma and his brethren after hearing the prayers of the Zoramites, I was "astonished beyond all measure." I bent down and shouted into my girlfriend's ear (it was a concert, after all): "The lead singer of Beast in Black is standing five feet away!"
She then kindly took the following photo:
Me in the foreground, of course, with Yannis right behind my left shoulder, blending into the crowd just like any random civilian. After the nigh-unto countless times I'd listened to his songs in my car since late 2024, and just after having the time of my life on the front row of his concert, the transformation was almost more than I could wrap my brain around.
Unwilling to miss the opportunity, I typed into my phone "You have the very best voice in the history of Heavy Metal!!!" (which I truly believe 100%, so it wasn't a lie.) I then sidestepped closer and surreptitiously slid the screen to my left toward the bottom of his field of vision. He read it and turned to me, cracked a big smile, and thanked me sincerely! Here's a photo of the occurrence:
Then something completely unprecedented took place: He yelled at me over the music, "So, how was the sound from the front? Was it O.K.?" I was instantaneously taken aback, because this implied that I knew something he didn't, and it simultaneously implied that he valued my opinion (on that topic, at least--which was of course more than good enough for me). I immediately reasoned that there's no way he can be doing this for this long without knowing how his concerts sound from the audience's position, so within that split second I dared to consider the possibility that he was using the question as an excuse to make light conversation. Could it be that he found value in striking up some small talk with ME, a mere pee-on compared to him? The music was loud, so I couldn't get into any detail, so I said "Yeah, it was all right!" while giving the double thumbs-up. Which it was, but it was loud enough that the subtler sounds you can hear in the videos above were drowned out, but in the next split second I figured that he couldn't possibly NOT know all that anyhow, so why belabor the point?
Soon after this the concert ended and the lights came on. Before he caught some others' attention I asked him to sign the setlist I'd obtained, which he kindly did. Here's a photo of the action in progress:
Here's a picture from a few seconds later of me thanking him while he hands me back my girlfriend's pen:
This one probably captures when I was gushing over how good his music is:
He again thanked me sincerely. Totally solid guy!
I then decided to push my luck (hey, you only live once) and asked if I could take a picture with him. He graciously complied yet again:
Sometime after this he told me, "I really like your energy." After thanking him I turned away to allow some others to get some time with him, at which point he leaned in toward my girlfriend and repeated to her, "I really like this guy's energy!"
I was still reeling from just having my heavy metal god warmly--as is hopefully clear in the photos--interact with li'l ol' me, so I hung out in the general vicinity, coming up with as many different ways as I could to declare to my girlfriend how awesome and unbelievable all this was and how incredibly thankful I was to her for being sure that we stayed to the end of the concert. . . obviously I would've missed all this if we'd followed my lead and departed early. I was so far into cloud nine that going home simply hadn't occurred to me yet.
After talking and taking photos with some more fans one-, two-, or three-on-one--at one point he more or less repeated to some people what he'd told the audience earlier about the upcoming album, at another he explained to others that he is excited for the next album and really wished he could've performed some songs from it--things eventually settled to where he was talking to us in a group. I moved back in to hear better, and he went back to the topic of "energy." He told us, "If I'm having a s*** day--which today I wasn't--the energy from the crowd can really pick me back up." He then explained that all the band members easily notice the crowd's energy and are similarly picked up by it.
He soon made some sort of oblique comment that sounded like he recognized me from the crowd. I picked up on this and asked, "Wait, does this mean you remember me from the front row?" He smiled widely and exclaimed, "You were in my face!" I of course laughed; that statement of his will go down in my memory as the capstone of our conversation(s). He then recounted that he noticed me following along with all the lyrics. He then added, "I was thinking, 'this guy knows our stuff!'"
"I was thinking[.]" Wow. Just, wow. There you have it: Proof positive that not only can band members notice the doings of individual audience members who are close enough, but they can at least briefly think about said doings mid-performance.
A little later, when there was a break in the conversation, I jumped in and said what I'd told others: "We don't know anything about Helloween; we're here just for you!" He again smiled and thanked me graciously. Here's a photo:
I then abbreviated the story of how the father and daughter next to me went from never having heard of Beast in Black to becoming fans, so now they have two more fans. He seemed happy to hear this.
During all these exchanges, more than one handshake was exchanged. We even did a quick "bro hug" once or twice, you know, when two guys stand side-by-side and briefly put their hands on the other's shoulder.
By this time it was clear that things were wrapping up, so it finally occurred to me to depart. As I was walking away I turned and said, "Thanks for coming out and interacting with all of us like this! You made this THE BEST NIGHT EVER!" Affable to the end, Yannis smiled widely and replied with a kind "you're welcome" or words to similar effect.
All the way walking to the car, then all the way driving home I rhapsodized to my girlfriend non-stop about what an amazing and fantastic experience it all was. How I could hardly believe it wasn't all a dream. Interspersed among all that I again found multiple different ways of thanking her for ensuring we didn't leave early, thereby opening the way for me to enjoy such a thoroughly incredible occurrence.
SO, that's the story of April 25, 2026, when I not only saw my tied-for-first-place favorite band in concert ON THE FRONT ROW but also met and spoke with the lead singer thereof, a frontman I completely and thoroughly idolize. They say you should never meet your heroes, but this time was an EXTREME exception, for hopefully his positivity, graciousness, and affability shows through in the above photos. Again, the transformation was almost incomprehensible, because there on the auditorium floor, away from the stage and without all the rockstar regalia, was my exact same idol conversing and interacting casually with the concert-goers, seeming all the world like just a regular guy, the kind you could kick back and have a beer with. . . a very pleasant surprise indeed!
Thanks for reading! May you have an utterly "cloud nine" experience like this sometime, too.
