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Events and Reports - Sweden Rock Festival 2004 - Day 1 (Nina) - Paragon, D:A:D, Memory Garden, Helloween & Judas Priest
Well, a trip to Sweden Rock Festival is equal to three days of Metal, Rock, beers and good company of likeminded Metalheads! This year the festival had grown even bigger, allowing 3000 people more than last year to enter the Heavy Metal universe!
We started out early; traveling to the festival ground at Wednesday, and got our tents up. Those of us who had press access didn't have to stand in line in the ordinary "wristband queue", which I was ever thankful for! The line for getting regular festival wristbands was so long, that several people had to stand there for hours. Even a lot of people in The Haunted t-shirts still stood in line when The Haunted went on stage at 15 pm, and I can't help but feel that something must have gone very wrong in planning how to get everyone inside the festival ground in right time. A shame, since the festival seems so well arranged in most other aspects!
Paragon
Hmm, I only know a few songs with Paragon, so I went to this show, hoping to get some sort of enlightment or just a cool surprise. Well, let's just say they didn't manage to win me over as a fan. It felt like a certain spark was missing, the band didn't seem that enthusiastic on stage, and the songs sounded like standard German Power Metal, which could be good enough, if carried out with some sort of special intensity. Here, it was just.well, mediocre.
D:A:D
D:A:D is a band I grew up with, like many Danes my age, so a certain amount of nostalgia was involved, which is not to say I don't like their newer stuff just as much, because I do. The band has a talent for writing atmospheric, catchy Rock tunes, and always seems professional and enjoyable live. So it was today as well! The bass player wore some crazy kind of suit, all in glitter colors, and towards the end of the show he came onstage with a helmet on his head and fireworks coming out on top. Always a plus with some kind of show! The voice of Jesper Binzer was in great shape and the band seemed enthusiastic on stage! We were treated to great newer tunes such as Evil Twin, The Road Below Me and Reconstrucdead mixed with classics like Jihad, Bad Craziness before Marlboro Man ended this great performance!
Memory Garden
Memory Garden has this special style, combining Doom and Power Metal, plus various other musical ingredients. Slow, ultra heavy riffs blend with the beautiful and powerful vocals of the great singer Stefan Berglund. A great and unique sound, and live the band lived up to my expectations, with good playing and a general strong performance. The only song I could sing along to completely was Forever, which was my personal highlight. The band seemed happy on the smoke covered stage, and the respond from the audience was good too.
Helloween
Then it was time to catch Helloween and what a great show they put on, full of energy and skillful playing! They started out with some old classics, Starlight and Murderer, followed by the Keeper Of The Seven Keys track, a great treat for any fan, where I found myself screaming along and really enjoying the show! The happy, positive Future World was great live as well as Eagle Fly Free, and I must say Andi Deris is a solid singer and performer, looking very happy and delivering the vocals perfectly. Backed up by the great band, this was bound to be a highlight of the festival! The emotional If I Could Fly is actually one of my fave Helloween tunes, and what a great version of this song we got today! A great concert was over way too soon with Sun 4 The World as the final punch.
Judas Priest
Well, time for some of the big, old grounding heroes of Metal, Judas Priest, now reunited with Rob Halford. I had been looking forward to the show, but honestly, there are bands I'd wanted to see more. It's like to me, that I've heard all the songs a million times, the ideas of all these reunions doesn't really appeal to me either. Reinventing old days glory seems done over and over by bands that for some reason feel they have to get the last bit of fortune and fame before time catches up with them. This is of course my personal and general opinion on the matter, and don't think I don't love Priest, because I do, it's just like the magic seems to disappear more and more from these sort of ageing heroes.
Well, the concert was good! The band is of course professional and extremely experienced, and though Halford is not singing like when he was in his twenties, I thought he did great tonight! The band played it safe, delivering all their obvious hits, Hell Bent For Leather, Exciter, The Ripper and of course Painkiller. Well, that's what people want to hear, and at a festival where a lot of people who are not big Priest fans, but know these songs, it's cool! The acoustic version of Diamonds And Rust was spine chilling, while a powerful and emotional version of Touch Of Evil and of course the solid classic Breaking The Law made for other highlights! I was far from the stage, but was lucky enough to get to sit on someone's shoulders during The Green Manalishi and most of Painkiller, and the stage looked very cool, nicely decorated and covered in an excellent lightshow.
Continue to Day 2
| You can click most pictures for a bigger version
Paragon
D:A:D
D:A:D
Helloween
Helloween
Helloween
Judas Priest
Judas Priest
Judas Priest
Judas Priest
Judas Priest
Judas Priest
Judas Priest
Judas Priest
All pictures taken by Steen | Written by Nina
Wednesday, June 23, 2004 |
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