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Events and Reports - Sweden Rock Festival 2009 - Day 4 (Stuart) - Riot, Immortal, Heaven And Hell
Saturday 6th June
The final day of the Festival was kicked off by Tim 'Ripper' Owens and his all star band featuring the likes of Chris Caffery and Simon Wright. Despite Ripper's status as one of my favourite singers and the backing bands pedigree the set largely bored the arse off me.
We missed the first couple of songs but arrive just in time to hear the Priest classic The Ripper followed by one of the stronger songs from Tim's Beyond Fear project called Scream Machine. Tim sounded in decent form but was clearly not pushing his voice too hard. Next up he invited us to burn with him and we got Burn In Hell from the Ripper era Priest album Jugulator.
Alas it was almost all downhill from here as the band "treated" us to several songs from Tim's new album Play My Game. I find the album an uneasy collection of Traditional Heavy Metal with a down tuned Southern Rock groove twist. It does nothing for me on record and has pretty much the same effect live. I was so bored I decided it was time to visit the toilet towards the end of the set and just made in back in time for another Priest cover The Green Manalishi (With The Two Pronged Crown). It really doesn't bode well for Owen's solo career when the strongest songs of his set are all essentially covers.
As the 6th is National Sweden Day the organisers always get a band to perform the national anthem. This year it was Sabaton's turn and they played a metalized version to a sea of fine voiced Swedes. It's sounds like a fun anthem but of course no match for my version of Flower of Scotland!
The band were not content to leave the stage after just one song and burst into their own personal anthem Primo Victoria. It was a great moment as I had a sneaky feeling they were going to play a little something extra and was soon bouncing along to the chorus with the rest of the crowd.
Impellitteri were on the main stage so we made our way over to check them out. They played a respectable set with Rob Rock providing a fine vocal performance. The rest of the band failed to make an lasting impression on me and after hearing the admittedly excellent Wicked Maiden from the album of the same name we headed off in search of other entertainments (Ok so yet again I mean beer)
After some light refreshments came the main event of the entire festival, Riot.The band has recently reunited the classic Thundersteel line-up of main man Mark Reale and Bobby Flyntz on guitar, Don Van Stanten on bass, Bobby Jarzombek on drums and the legendary Voice of Steel Tony Moore back for the first time since the Privilege of Power era.
There had been some speculation if Tony's voice was still as unbeatable as it once was, with the man himself admitting that when he first tried to sing the classics he considered calling off the reunion as he couldn't match his past performances.
The band opened with the instrumental Naraita, further increasing the tension of the singers arrival. As soon was the riff for Fight or Fall kicked in our man of the hour appeared to get the show started. It soon became apparent that the vocal training was not in vain as Tony was hitting the high notes like it was 1988.
Actually the entire band was on fire, Mark's blistering leads were a joy to watch and the rhythm section of Bobby and D.V.S sounded tremendously tight. The crowd was fairly small by the Rock Stages standard at the start of the set but by about half way through the set it started getting fairly packed.
The highlights were many, Johnny's Back was astounding, On Your Knees sounded so much better without the slightly off putting brass section, Flight of The Warrior had me jumping about like a mad man and Swords and Tequila (what an awesome song title) was included in the set to satisfy fans of the bands even older works.
It wasn't all about the classics as there was one pretty impressive new song aired called Wings Are For Angels. The band announced they had seventeen new songs ready and should have an album out in the near future. It can't come soon enough for me!
Towards the end of the set Tony advised is that this was were the really difficult stuff was about to be played then Bobby launched the band straight into Dance of Death. Moore's vocals on the chorus were beyond incredible and as if that wasn't a thrilling enough display the mighty Thundersteel followed straight after. This caused some major head banging and really bad falsetto from your humbler writer. What a show and I can only hope it won't be the last time the band grace a Sweden Rock stage.
There was no rest for the wicked as straight after Riot finished we were off to see Journey. The band pulled a gigantic crowd (bigger than some headliners) and put on an AOR-tastic show. And this is coming from someone who would rather poke himself in the eye with a sharp stick than watch an AOR band.
Journey are the exception to the rule however and went down a storm, Arnel Pineda's vocals match Steve Perry's with frightening accuracy and he is a little whirlwind of energy on stage. The weather was perfect at this point and the atmosphere tremendous as the crowd sung along with hits like Stone In Love and Wheel In The Sky.
Biggest responses were held back for the bands two largest tracks Don't Stop Believing and party anthem Any Way You Want It. The piano combined with Neal Schon's trilling guitar part at the beginning of Don't Stop gave me a serious case of goosebumps, has there ever been a more uplifting intro ever written?
After Journey I attempted to watch Thrash legends Forbidden but was far to knackered and a little bit cold to truly enjoy it. So after a couple of songs I headed back to the campsite for rest and more layers of clothing
Instead of watching the horrible Dream Theatre (*Awaits endless torrents of hate mail*) later that night Ross and I decided to watch the Sweden Vs Denmark football match on a big screen in the Gibson Tent. We also made the decision to support the Danes in honour of our Danish companions and drew a few disparaging looks when we (quietly) celebrated Denmark's opening goal.
It was good fun as I was a little drunk by this point and managed to get into some good football related conversations with various different groups of slightly depressed looking Swedes. We left Sweden still searching for an equalizer in the second half as I had arranged to meet Craig down the front for Immortal.
Immortal turned in a toweringly grim set which more than made up for the fact that I was sacrificing watching Europe who were on at the same time on the Rock Stage. The band spent the majority of the set wrapped in smoke pouring out from the sides of the stage and illuminated by blue lighting This made it seem as if they were playing in the middle of some frozen wasteland rather than a cooling Swedish field.
Abbath is quite the showman despite his Kvlt standing and put on some performance with plenty of crab walking, face pulling, tongue action and even some fire breathing!
There was a problem with his guitar for the first song but this was soon solved and the band raced through a set of frosty classics like Damned In Black, Solarfall, Blashyrkh and Tyrants (a song tailor made for the live arena) Horgh's brutal drumming and new bassist Apollyon's deep bass sound made the maelstrom of metal seem unfeasibly fierce for just a three piece.
Since my favourite Immortal album is Pure Holocaust the best moment in the set was a monstrous rendition of Unsilent Storms In The North Abyss. Abbath's hoarse croak of "I'm a demon, A demon with a shadowed face" seemed to be issued forth from a tomb rather than just from some bloke on stage in make-up. The band drew a big crowd and kept up the tradition of fine Black Metal shows at Sweden Rock. Lets hope for one or two more next year.
The stage was set for Heaven and Hell to bring the festival to a close with a bang but things didn't pan out they way they should have. The band started well enough with Mob Rules, Children of The Sea and the amazing riffing of I. The sound was a little off with Geezer's bass being far too loud in the mix but it wasn't too off putting.
Dio announced the next song would be Bible Black off the new album The Devil You Know and during the slow intro section where Dio's ageless voice still shines, some bright spark behind the mixing desk decided what the sound really needed was for Tony's guitar to be turned down, right down.
I'm hoping someone tore strips off the person responsible for this gross error after the gig as it turned a excellent gig into an embarrassing one. Tony's guitar was only barely audible for the majority of the rest of the set, completely decimating the power of his classic riffs. For some reason the guitar became louder during solo sections but as soon as the rhythm parts kicked back in it was swallowed again by the bass and drums.
Like Amon Amarth a few days previous I struggled to enjoy the set despite the band playing songs like Time Machine and Die Young. Also the band need to update the stage set as the computer generated images on the screens at the back looked like something from Dire Strait's Money For Nothing video Not exactly impressive in this day and age.
Thankfully, midway through Heaven and Hell the guitar came roaring back to life, only problem was this time it was overbearingly loud. Still the end section faired better with Neon Knights being prefaced with a snippet of Country Girl which I had wanted to hear live since the reunion was announced. Lets face it, is there anything better than Dio warning you not to fall in love with a demonic girl from the countryside? We would all do well to heed his advice.
It was not quite the grand finale the festival needed but Sweden Rock 09 still triumphed over some bad weather and numerous sound difficulties to be an excellent festival with one of the strongest and most various line up's in its history. I can't wait to see what next years instalment will bring.
Go to...
Day 1Day 2Day 3Day 4
| Click Pictures for a bigger version
Riot
Riot
Immortal
Immortal
Immortal
Immortal
Immortal
Immortal
Heaven And Hell
Heaven And Hell
Heaven And Hell
Heaven And Hell
Heaven And Hell
Heaven And Hell
Immortal + Heaven and Hell pictures taken by Lunah - Metal Moments | Written by Stuart
Sunday, July 19, 2009 |
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RevelationZ Comments
| Comment by Nina (Staff) - Tuesday, July 21, 2009 | 
View Profile
Comments: 40 | | Hey Stuart!
Very enjoyable report!
Cool to read about some bands I didn't know about.never heard about Witchcraft for instance, but that sounds pretty interesting! I also wanted to go see Portrait, but Flogging Molly got in the way of that plan.
The festival sure was a blast, and you covered that pretty well in your report!
Until the next year, keep that head banging!
Posted by Nina (Staff)
Tuesday, July 21, 2009 |
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