forum.blind-guardian.com

What was the firs time you have heard about this wonderful band?

I've heard about it from my friend. He listened "Mirror Mirror" and I liked it! Firstly I couldn't remember the name of band, but now I know it very well!

I bought an album without knowing what the hell it was. I didn't even like metal back then. After my impulse-purchase of IFTOS, my life was changed forever.

This is my story...it was three years ago : "I have never heard about a group called Blind Guardian and no one of my friends was listening to them, but back in these days I saw for a few days 2 guys with their T-shirts...now I remember that the first one was of Mirror Mirror and the second one was of ATTWS.I decided that maybe this is some famous band and I really liked the pictures on the T-shirts(especially on ATTWS...OMG, now I realized that this T-shirt made me their fan ), so I wanted to hear something from this band ! Then,again back in these days, but a few days later, I opened youtube and wrote Blind Guardian, so-as you all know- it's first sugesstion was The Bards Song After that I heard the other Youtube's sugesstions which were Mirror Mirror, Battlefield and Sacred, so I really enjoyed their music." Anyway, if I have to be honest, I become their real fan maybe a year and a half after that, it take me some time to get into their unique style and Hansi's amazing deepest and raw voice

It was about 2002, and these were the days of Limewire and such. I must've been only 13.. Simply put I was browsing the Lord of the Rings forums on Game FAQs, found a thread about Tolkien-inspired music, and was directed to The Curse of Feanor. I had never heard anything like it. It pulled me out of a Green Day/Linkin Park phase. From there I pirated most of ANATO and NIME with bits of IFTOS. I made mixed CDs of this "amazing, indescribable, powerful heavy" band for my friends, none of us had ever had something so majestic.

The wait for ATEOT was as grueling as the wait for ATITM. This next wait will surely be the worst.

Hm. Most of us would seem to be "newer" fans. I don't know what to make of that.

Some kid that I thought was cool in my school was wearing a Blind Guardian shirt. So I checked them out. At first I thought they were kind of ok, not realy my style. I remember first listening to Mirror Mirror and thinking of it as a mediocre song. i kept on listening to them and eventually fell in love.

2002 I was in ninth grade and met a friend at school who had a Forgotten Tales shirt and he told me to check out Into The Storm, so I did and then I bought the Live album and after that got totally hooked to every song and started playing them on guitar and they became one of my all time favorite metal bands.

We're children of the internet. BG probably wouldn't have made it this far without us, and our nets.

So that's why they got so popular after the release of Somewhere Far Beyond!

It was back in '05, I think. I used to listen to oldies/retro-stuff, usually on the radio. And so I did as well on that fateful June afternoon. On comes a song about Moria. Being already deep in that LotR-craze back then, I looked for it on the internet. All I found was a song called "By the Gates of Moria" by some band called "Blind Guardian". Since I didn't have much use for my allowance back then, I blindly ordered this CD "Battalions of Fear". Got it, put it in the player, Majesty starts. Some weird organ stuff, then a thunderstorm of guitars. My life was changed forever.
Needless to say, By the Gates of Moria was not the song I heard on the radio. Turns out later that it was Moria by Anyone's Daughter. Until this day, I do not own that song.

Thanks to a cassette which my older sister got from a class mate, i heard Traveler in Time and Lord of the rings. Some month later i went to a supermarket with a CD section and i found 'Imaginations from the other side' album (it just was released, else i can't explain why this supermarket had it, because their CD stock was quite small and less metal friendly)

Back in '00 or '01 someone gave me a cassette with songs from Sfb, Iftos and maybe Nime, can't quite remember. Hmm, I need to find that cassette, it's a keepsake.

Snarkiness aside, file sharing/tape trading/whatever else has allowed musicians to become exponentially more popular than they could've dreamed of. Social networking as well. I don't know the statistics, and neither do you, so I can't say right now whether SFB's mere existence did more for them than the boom of the internet. It'd be foolish to deny its sway, though, because I wouldn't know about them without the internet. I'd still be listening to the Billboard Hot 100.

SFB's change in style/quality/far more cohesive sound did a lot for their image and publicity, but imagine if the internet remained as big as it was in '92. They'd be lucky to get a tour in the US.

Of course tapetrading was important in those days, but to say BG made it so big because of the internet is nonsense. Blind Guardian are a huge name in metal sicne the early nienties, and there was no internet back then. Of course did the internet help to introduce the younger fans to them, but to say they wouldn't have amde it this far without the net is at least a very interesting thesis, to put it politely.

I think Dentarthurdent is right. Of course internet made them popular as well, but so it was for every band. or you can say if internet makes bands popular and just it then every newcomer band should make it easy to the top, but with the possibility to reach everyone, you got the disadvantage of a stronger contest between bands any kind of nations.

In an interview BG stated that they can pay their bills by these jobs since beginning of the 90's. The Internet got famous around middle of the 90's and until the first media could be streamed (real player) or mp3 could be shared it took a while, too. NIME (1998) as far as i know at least was not leaked on the internet, as leaking albums wasn't popular and the down- and upload speed was pretty lame on private accounts.
So i would say first people getting known to BG via internet was not earlier than 1998.
BG were pioneers using choires and more melodic and classical stuff, so they were absolutely unique that (and using modern studio technique) was what made them famous.
I always wonder why the never got the popularity of Iron Maiden or Metallica, maybe because it's too specific? But all in all i am happy not to share them on every concert with 10.000+ people

Well, I think "big" is a relative term.. they would've been big regardless. I was just trying to help wade "make something" of most of us being newer fans. We probably wouldn't have been privileged to know about BG without the internet, just as BG wouldn't be privileged to such an expansive, diverse fanbase They are brilliant, the internet notwithstanding.

Couple of years ago I was touching up on my knowledge of the Silmarillion on that totally trustworthy source called Wikipedia. At the bottom, I came across "The German power metal band Blind Guardian released Nightfall in Middle-Earth, a concept album based upon The Silmarillion" So I followed the links and listened to Mirror Mirror and Curse of Feanor and was hooked. That one set of clicks got me entirely into metal, and I'm rather glad it happened.

It was autumn 2003, I just got a bit into metal (read Metallica and Maiden xD) and was a huge LOTR fan. (yeah LOTR, not Tolkien, as I didn't have a clue about Silmarillion, Hobbit etc.) There was a kind of 'music club' in a school where I had private English lessons and now a friend of mine asked me: 'You listen to metal, right?' -Yup. 'And you like LOTR?' -Sure! 'I'll bring something to you next week, ok?' -Fine with me.

He brought me NiMe cassette with whole spreadsheet with lyrics and stuff and just said: 'Have a listen. '

I played Into the Storm or Mirror first (can't remember, those are the 1st songs on each side of the cassette), but it was a bit too heavy for me at that age. xD Next spring (about 4-5 months later), while I was cleaning the room I ran into the cassette again and thought ''hey, i could give a listen to this again'' and from that point on I was hooked for life.

Back in 2004, I didn't have internet, and if I did, I didn't know how to download, so I took everything I could find about BG music from older friends and guys who were going out. Luckily, there was a pirate CD shop nearby who were selling CDs for 120 dinars (about 2 euros then), so I bought almost all albums there in a year time.

The cassette is still alive and kicking after almost 9 years.

Around the year 2005, somebody posted the entire 'nightfall' song on an internet message board I was browsing, considering how I was only beginning to develop my musical taste, that guy really impacted me by bringing this band to my attention, I didn't think music like this existed, my teenage mind was not prepared, I thought metal was nothing but angry thrash. Afterwords, the whole world of power-metal was opened up to me, and it really shaped the rest of my teenage years. I've settled with a few established bands, but none of them can really stand the test of time like BG...although I do love some of elvenking's earlier tunes, one song of theirs Is perhaps my second favorite song of all time (under skalds and shadows), that being White Willow,(the narrative of that song is just brilliant)

But yea, considering how niche power metal is, had it not been for him, who knows how long it would have been before I stumbled upon this band.

About 8 years ago my friend borrowed me a cd with all sorts of songs on it. It was Mirror mirror that hooked me. I have had read silmarillion before and it clicked, loved their songs ever since.

Tolkien, NIME, and sharing seem to have done them quite a bit of good.

In 1993 I went on a student exchange trip for my junior year in high school (17 at the time). The guy I stayed with was a bit of a metalhead, and asked me if I had ever heard of this band called Blind Guardian. Of course being from the US I had not, so he made me a copy of TFTTW and SFB onto a cassette. BG has been my favorite band from the moment I first heard them.

And yes, 19 years later I still have that cassette!

Mislabeled Sonata Arctica song I DLed off of Limewire back in grade school.

When Somewhere Far Beyond released a friend of mine bought the cd (maybe because he read a review).

I think it was "Journey through the dark" which I listened firstly when I met him at home

I was in a music store, and there was a guy wearing a Twist in the Myth hoodie, and I thought "heeey this is a really cool dragon...let´s see if I find a CD of this band...".
so I just bought the CD cause of this awesome cover, and well, I fell in love with BG..

It was in 2005. I was recommended "And Then There Was Silence" by a poster on a music forum, and I was amazed, so I proceeded to listen to A Night at the Opera and check out their other albums.

There in 1996, a guy who studied in the same school of me, lend me a cassete tape with the whole Follow the Blind album. I never give it back for him. So, I was going to my first job, listening to it on my yellow walkman everyday, for several months.

That intro, and then Banish from Sanctuary, Damned for all time, and the whole album made me think that actually was possible to make fast, heavy, still melodic music.

At that time, I was listening to bands like Sepultura and Slayer. So knowing about BG start a whole new musical perception for me, and I realized how those bands I was listening to were/are a big shit.
Hansi's voice, Andre's unique leads, Marcus's complex things, and agressive Thomen were totally new for me, I was 16. I'm 31 now.

So I started to look for their other albums, and I bought all of the cd's, and I was proud of my new collection.
SfB album shocked me in a very strong way. I had several visions listening to this album. Fuck yeah, that was a good time.
NiME album changed my life. I became their guest, forever.

It could be in 1994 or 95 in a spanish radio show called "emision pirata" the song Another Holy War catched my attention because of the choirs and the medieval flavour. Next one was A Past and Future Secret and I wanted the album soo bad, a friend bought it and I taped it on a cassette (very typical then :p). I liked it so much I didnt wanted to hear any other albums to not get dissapointed. Then in 1996 I had the opportunity to see em live so I asked the same friend Somewhere Far Beyond,taped it and listened to it. It blew me away, sooo cool. But the songs I liked most in that concert were from another album,Tales from the Twilight World, the first I bought and then I bought every one of them. In that concert they also talked me about Lord of the rings so I became a bg and Tolkien fan at the same time. Very good memories of that concert, Valhalla, the Imaginations huge curtain behind the band, the extremely thin pirate tshirt I bought that didnt protect from the cold...and the orange "very metallish" plain tshirt of Hansi when playing the bass. I expected some huge choir of something and there were the 4 bards thrashing our asses out with Banish from sanctuary , welcome to dying, majesty, valhalla...and the inmense Lost in the twilight hall. The ended with Barbara Ann

The Bard's Song was the first thing I heard from them and then i decided to check the rest. It was well worth the journey

Did it through ultimate-guitar.com in 2008. Searched for acoustic medieval tabs and the site suggested me The Bard's Song. It was the first time I had heard about Blind Guardian.

I shocked after I read above the same messages .

Here are my the ingredients:

- A friend
- A cassette player
- Nightfall In the middle earth album
- Nightfall
- Play button for 5 seconds

Around 2008, I was browsing videos on youtube, looking for new metal bands I'd never heard of before. I ended up on BlankTV's channel which had the Demons and Wizard's music video for Terror Train. I'd never heard of them before then, but I recognized Jon Schaffer from Iced Earth; having been a fan of them for a long time. I didn't recognize Hansi at the time, but I fell in love with the song and Hansi's haunting voice on that track. I must have listened to it for about 20 times on that day. Then I looked for other songs they did on youtube and listening to them (although sadly it's very difficult to find this kind of metal in my city, so all of my music for Blind Guardian and Demons and Wizards has been online purchases, though I'd love to actually own the albums if I could. The only one I have is At the Edge of Time.) Anyways, eventually I decided to look up Demons and Wizards on wikipedia, and found out it was a side project of Hansi and Jon's. And that Hansi was the lead singer of a band named Blind Guardian (which at the time I had never heard of either), so I looked them up, and read a lot about their songs, finding out that they were typically related to things that I was into (and still am), such as fantasy novels, history, etc. So I figured I'd give them a listen, and the first song I listened to was "Time Stands Still", mainly because it stuck out at me given that the band Rush (another band I really like) has a song with a similar title called "Time Stand Still".

After that, I've been hooked, and the rest is history. Blind Guardian then becoming my favourite band to listen to, and they're unique in that regards for me. I can listen to them over and over and over, and I'll never get tired of hearing them.

I really fill the need to express here a great “thank you” to the Guardian for all that it has offered me through the years. I first heard «Somewhere far Beyond» in a tape an old friend had made for me. It was back in the days when buying an album was a bit of a luxury. Since the first notes of “Time what is Time” I knew that It was the beginning of something great for me. I still don’t know how it happens but whenever I hear a song from BG i totally live it, it makes me happy, makes me sad, makes my want to head bang my brains out..Their music has been with me since early puberty and now at my 30s, still speaks to my hart at a unique way. Thank you for creating a soundtrack to my life and I hope you will still feel the magic to create such unique and great art for years to come.

(I just decided to write about the album but couldn’t help it..)

I saw 'Somewhere Far Beyond' in my local CD store several years back. I liked the cover and decided to check it out.

When I first listened to it, I thought the vocals sounded familiar. I had already been a fan of Iced Earth and had the 1st CD from Demons & Wizards and loved it.

I'm no longer sure which band I prefer: BG or IE. BGs biggest advantage is the consistency of having the same vocalist.

I met with Blind Guradian in this year. I read J.R.R. Tolkien's books which is about middle earth. After that, I researched Elves. I researched elves which is eldar. So, I saw a song, which is The Eldar from Blind Guardian. I really liked it. Honestly I wasn't listen metal songs but I liked Blind Guardian's music. So, I downloaded Blind Guardian discography and started listen BG albums. I enjoyed ''Nightfall In The Middl Earth'' album and I bought it from a music market. I'm from Turkey and in this country album prices are expensive, maybe I will be able to buy other BG albums in the future. If i had a chance i will buy. Finally, I wanna see Blind Guardian in Turkey. They have lot of fans in this country. We are waiting for Blind Guardian concert. Blind Guardian forever \ıı/ Ilúvatar will save you guys;)

Hm. I'm pretty sure we've seen each other on the forum quite a bit... and we did talk in chat.

And I'm pretty sure it wasn't me