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Events and Reports - Sweden Rock Festival 2009 - Day 2 (Stuart) - Rage, Candlemass, Twisted Sister
Thursday 4th June
Thursday started at midday with a quite impressive performance form German metal titans Rage. Celebrating 25 years of the band they drew a large crowd for a set that early in the day. They were the first band of the festival to play on the Rock stage and I was worried that the sound might not be up to scratch for them.
Turns out the sound was crystal clear and everything from Victor Smolski's soaring solos to new boy Andre Hilgers drumming was mixed perfectly. Peavy Wagner's vocals too sounded excellent. He may not have one of the most spectacular voices ever but it certainly does the job. Higher than the Sky was great and War of the Worlds has such a strong and memorable chorus that by the end the majority of the crowd were singing along.
Not being the biggest Rage aficionado I am not overly familiar with their work and the set took a bit of a dive halfway through as they begin to play songs from their orchestral period. The pace soon picked up and by the end of set closer Soundchaser the band was met with large applause.
Next up were Doom/Heavy Rock masters Grand Magus. The band have been slowly gathering momentum in the past few years and their latest album Iron Will is perhaps the strongest of their career. Opening with Like The Oar Strikes The Water, it seemed to take a couple of songs for the band to really hit their stride, but once they hit Silver Into Steel they had their doomy groove locked in placed. JB's voice has always impressed me and despite not singing the chorus of I Am The North correctly I was still captivated by his performance. The band rounded off their set with a pounding Kingslayer and received a loud response from the gathered crowd.
We had a couple of hours to kill before out next injection of doom so we wandered back to the campsite for a few beers. But it wasn't long before Craig and I found ourselves in front of the main stage waiting on Candlemass to appear.
The band were ushered onstage by the imposing tones of the Marche Funebre intro tape and opened with Mirror Mirror from one of their earlier albums. Unfortunately even doom lords find themselves pray to the festival sound Gods and there was a amp failure after their first track. Rob Lowe did his best stand up comedian routine till the problem was fixed and summed the situation up perfectly by stating "It's typical, you invite 10,000 friends round for a party and the stereo breaks"
The problem was eventually sorted and the band continued to lay down an oppressive set of doom classics including a The Samaritan, Emperor of the Void and a stunning Solitude. The band left the stage and assuming it was over we started departing however Leif and co came back on for a brilliant run through Rainbow's Kill The King. Not the last time I would here that song that day!
I ended up talking to a Swedish guy (whose name escapes me) about Thrash Metal and the three of us headed off to the bar, then to catch some of Flogging Molly's set. I'm not a big fan of the band on record but I'll admit they are a fine live act that really knows how to get an audience jigging.
We left about half an hour into the gig to get to the Restaurant stage to see Portrait. On our way there we were waylaid by a guy called Lars-Erik who heard our Scottish accents and came over to talk to us. He was a really nice chap and provided me with the strangest moment of the weekend by serenading me with a Frank Zappa song called Why does It Hurt When I Pee in a high pitched voice. Now that's something that doesn't happen every day.
Anyway, we bade goodbye to our Zappa loving friend and went off in search of Portrait. The band drew a healthy crowd to the restaurant stage and played a strong 40 minute set of NWOBHM/Thrash inspired tunes. Lead singer Per Karlsson cuts a fine line in King Diamond style high pitched vocals and is an excellent frontman. Its seeing smaller, local acts ( the band hail from just down the road in Kristianstad) that make the trip over worthwhile as you wouldn't get a band like this at a UK festival, mores the pity.
After some downtime (well ok I mean beers) at the campsite Craig and I headed off to watch Bullet. We arrived a couple of songs into the set but I really enjoyed the rest of the performance. The band play straight up Heavy Metal in the style of Accept, with classic rock influences from the likes of AC/DC and even Status Quo!
Despite only being formed at the turn of the century with just two albums to their name, the band have honed their stage performance to a tee. Songs like Heading for the Top and Bite The Bullet can get you singing along even if you have never heard them before and the bands anthem Bang Your Head had the crowd doing just that.
The first of the festival's clashes reared its ugly head next as Over The Rainbow went head to head with Hammerfall. Having seen The 'Fall plenty of times I reasoned I should go watch the glorified Rainbow tribute band as I'm never likely to see them again.
In case you are unfamiliar with the concept of Over The Rainbow, it's a bunch of guys who used to be in Rainbow (including Joe Lynn Turner on vocals) but instead of Ritchie Blackmore on guitar it's his son Jurgen taking control of the riff duties.
Being a massive fan of the Dio era Rainbow and not so much the 80's rock stuff I though the band were good at what they were doing but not exceptional. Jurgen's playing is much more restrained than his fathers but is still impressive. They opened with Kill The King and the wonderful Tarot Woman before launching into a bunch off songs I hadn't heard before.
I recognised I Surrender of course but to be honest I was getting a little restless waiting for earlier material. Fortunately after a lengthy Bobby Rondinelli drum solo I got Stargazer followed by Long Live Rock And Roll. Stargazer is quite frankly one of the greatest songs ever written and I thought the band did it justice despite the keyboard sound being a bit off and the obvious fact that Joe's pipes are no match for the mighty Ronnie James Dio's.
The tribute night was ended on a bit of a sour note though, Since You Been Gone got it's obvious airing but halfway through the song the band went on to play All Night Long and never returned to their biggest hit to finish it off. This annoyed me slightly but didn't detract too much from a decent, if slightly pedestrian performance.
After this Craig and I stopped off at a Chinese food stall called The Oriental Mat (more on this later) for some Sweet and Sour Chicken before getting in a good position for Twisted Sister.
I was just finishing off my meal when the band appeared on stage and opened with Stay Hungry (sorry Dee, I was actually quite full at that point). The majority of the set was taken up by the entire Stay Hungry album in order; the band took great lengths to remind us that it's the 25th anniversary of the album between almost every song.
By this point it was to say the least, bloody freezing so when the massive jets of flame started shooting out from the front of the stage during Burn in Hell, I was praying they would just keep them turned on for the entire set. Alas the meddling bastards at heath and safety might have had a word in their ear if they had tried.
It was a really enjoyable gig despite the ice cold temperature and Dee was on top form stage banter wise. Funniest moment of the entire festival came when he questioned who would want to buy an oriental mat at a festival, in Dee's own words "Oriental mat? Not fucking metal!!"
I'm not sure if he even knew what they were actually selling, I'm kind of hoping he didn't.
After S.M.F finished off the Stay Hungry portion of the night, the band were joined on stage by an absolutely sozzelled looking Lemmy and a slightly more sober Phil Campbell for a cover of The Stones Its only Rock and Roll. I seriously cannot stress how off his tits Lemmy was at this point but he managed to keep his bass lines in check like the lifelong professional drinker that he is.
The only disappointing thing about Twisted Sister was the measly three song encore. You would think the band would have given us a couple more as they had the headline slot but nope. Ah well it was cracking gig anyway.
Go to...
Day 1Day 2Day 3Day 4
| Click Pictures for a bigger version
Twisted sister
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Twisted sister
All pictures taken by Lunah - Metal Moments | Written by Stuart
Sunday, July 19, 2009 |
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RevelationZ Comments
| Comment by Steen (Staff) - Tuesday, July 21, 2009 | 
View Profile
Comments: 518 | | Haha! The Oriental Mat was in fact my favorite food joint. If they would actually introduce a mat to go along with the food, now that would open up a whole new world of possibilities.
My biggest regret of the festival after reading this is missing Thor. I would like to have seen that!
Posted by Steen (Staff)
Tuesday, July 21, 2009 |
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