Backyard Babies
Kalas-Tour, Mölleplatsen
Malmö ,Sweden
July 24, 2004
Review and
Pictures by Anders Sandvall
The kalas-tour is a one day festival that runs through Sweden
almost each summer with only Swedish acts. This year the artists
was Melody Club, Infinite Mass, Marit Bergman, Tomas Di Leva and
the only heavy band Backyard Babies who was one of the headline
acts this evening.
Even though this years line-up was pretty strong the crowd
failed, it was only about 3800 people there and Mölleplatsen has
a capacity for about 20,000. But that probably depends on the
constant rain we have had in Sweden this summer, and it has
rained almost everyday since May , but this evening the sun came
out. One thing that was more notable this year was the heavy
sponsoring form different companies like
phone/jeans/beer/liquor/smoking companies. At the beginning of
the evening it was more sponsor people than actually visitors.
Because it was so many bands it was extremely important that
they went on the both stages on time.
Backyard stood on stage as scheduled and this time they had
an old Elvis song as intro. The band stills tour on their last
album “STOCKHOLM SYNDROME” from -03 and I think it’s going to
take a while for them to release another one. Right now it’s
only touring that counts for the band.
The band is:
Johan Blomquist – bass
Dregen – guitar, side-kick vocals
Nicke Borg – lead vocals, guitar
Peder Carlsson – drums
They started out with “EVERYBODY READY” and from the very
beginning it’s full speed ahead. I couldn’t notice any sign of
any tiredness in the guys although they have been out on tour
for a really long time now.
Of some strange reason the small crowd at the front of the
stage screamed hey ho let’s go in-between each song, that’s a
bit odd ‘cause you ONLY do that on any show with The Ramones!
The guys didn’t move around so much, Johan stood on his side
as well as Nicke. The only one who’s everywhere was Dregen. He
worked really hard to get the crowd going, he always does that,
but know he said that he thought the crowd was really lazy and
tired and I fully agree with him. Nicke didn’t do so much
talking but that probably depend on the tight schedule. Dregen
takes more place as a frontman now something he shares with
Nicke.
The main focus was songs from “STOCKHOLM SYNDROME” 7 of the
13 songs they did this evening was taken from that album like
“EVERYBODY READY”, “YEAR BY YEAR” and the first single “MINUS
CELSIUS”. They did the second single “A SONG FOR THE OUTCAST”
and from the older records they played “BRAND NEW HATE”, “THE
CLASH”,“HEAVEN 2.9”, “MADE ME MADMAN” and “LOOK AT YOU”. Sadly
they didn’t play anything from their brilliant debut “DIESEL &
POWER”. Nicke doesn’t only share the talking between the song he
also shares the lead vocals with Dregen in “STAR WAR” and “YEAR
BY YEAR”, and as always Dregan had a real stage presence.
Nicke thanked after each song and introduced the next. The
playtime was 40 minutes and ended with “LOOK AT YOU”. As encore
they did “FRIENDS” from the new album and the new singel. On the
album Backyard gets help from Michael Monroe (Hanoi Rocks), Joey
Ramone R.I.P. (The Ramones), Danko Jones, Tyla (ex- Dogs
D’amour), Nina Persson (The Cardigans) and Kory Clark. This time
they had help from Nina and the Swedish rapper Timbuktu. After
that they finished off this sweaty glam/sleaze/garage
rock’n’roll evening with “BRAND NEW HATE” and “MINUS CELSIUS”
before they headed on into the next city.
Backyard had a real big stage and a big backdrop with them
this time and beside the drums there were two Marshall
amplifiers with stairs on them so you could stand on top of
them. As you can see on the pictures here.
Backyard has done a winter tour through Sweden earlier this
year so they didn’t do any summer touring except for the Kalas-
tour. They have also been out in Europe during the winter and
after the Kalas-tour it’s time for Backyard to hit the U.S.
Thanks to Caroline Eriksson at United Stage Managment Group
for the help at the show.
Setlist
Intro
Everybody ready
Earn the crown
Made me madman
Heaven 2.9
A song for the outkast
The clash
Highlights
One sound
Year by year
Look at you
Encores
Friends + guests
Brand new hate
Minus celsius
Band:
www.backyardbabies.com
www.bmg.se