DragonForce: Inhuman Rampage 20th Anniversary Tour

About This Event

DragonForce started in 1999 as DragonHeart, founded by Herman Li and Sam Totman, both fresh off the New Zealand metal band Demoniac — they renamed to DragonForce in 2002 after finding out another band already had the DragonHeart name. Inhuman Rampage, their third album, became the breakout: released at the end of 2005 (or January 2006, depending on the source), it went gold in both the US and UK and carried their most famous song, "Through the Fire and Flames."

That song got a second life in 2007 when Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock added it as a notoriously brutal bonus track, turning it into a rite of passage for a generation of plastic-guitar players. Herman Li has said that early on, the band didn't even own an acoustic guitar for the song's intro, so for a year or two they just had the keyboard player fake it live — which confused audiences expecting the recorded version.

Worth knowing: Ensiferum and Rhapsody of Fire open, ticket prices run anywhere from about $60 to well over $200 depending on the reseller, and the venue's own policy bars backpacks, bags, laptops, and tablets at the door.