In 1998 I had a Century Media sampler with Blind Guardian's 'Into the Storm' on it. Unfortunately this was the era when my musical compatriots and I were obsessed with Opeth, My Dying Bride, Paradise Lost, and black metal in general that was just entering its saturation phase but for us in an Australian backwater was still fresh and exciting. So to put it mildly I found 'Into the Storm' quaint, weak and out of its depth.
Turn to the year 2015 and future me is sitting around, largely bored with the musical landscape when I buy on a whim the brand new Blind Guardian album 'Beyond the Red Mirror'. Within a couple of months I bought 'Imaginations from the Other Side', 'Nightfall in Middle-Earth' (hello again 'Into the Storm'), 'A Night at the Opera', 'A Twist in the Myth', and 'At the Edge of Time' and now count them as one of my favourite bands. Of course, I still have more albums to purchase.
So there's something pretty unusual - me finally getting into a band that has been in the background for nearly 20 years of my life!