Merrygold - SummerRock Festival
July 12. 2003 Svedala, SWEDEN
Text and pics by Anders Sandvall
Merrygold is a new band from Malmö, Sweden. They are currently working on their debut
album under the working title BLOOD. The band hasn't played many live gigs
together, but they have done a lot of rehearsing and are very tight as a unit and they are
also a bunch of very experienced musicians.
The Current Line-up:
Selma - lead vocals
Per - guitar, background vocals
Staffan - guitar, background vocals
Martin - bass, background vocals
Andreas - drums
Because Merrygold haven’t got an album to support, they got a very short amount play
time at the festival. (Svedala is located a few miles outside Malmö) They also got to
play very early in the day. Despite the short play time, (about 30 minutes) they did a
great job and delivered song after song and without too much talking between the songs by
Selma. The sound was too low and left more to the imagination.
Merrygold plays some degree of melodic/hard rock with influences of
rock. Andreas
impresses behind the drums a lot, he is a technical player, and hits the drums hard. Stefan and Per
work very well together with the guitar playing. Martin is indeed a very good bass player -
one of the better ones in Sweden. Selma also has an amazing voice that suits the
music well. She’s also a very good front figure on stage and a stable vocalist.
Even though there were few people in the crowd when the band started with the song
“WHEN NOTHING OF IT’S LEFT”, Merrygold rocked on. A few of the other songs
they played were “CREEP,” “NOTHING,” and my personal favorites: the
faster song “LUCKY ONE” and the ballad “HAPPY.” Both of the songs
mentioned have big potential to be big radio hits and they can also climb high on the
charts worldwide.
Selma was all over the stage and worked really hard to get the crowd going. Staffan and
Martin also moved a lot over the stage floor. The stage was pretty big so they had a lot
of area to move. The only one who stood still was Per. He stood on his side all throughout
the show.
Despite the lack of audience, Merrygold played a great show. This show was the best
I’ve seen with them so far. There is only one thing to say about Merrygold - they are
going to go far in the future. Real far.
Thanks to Merrygold for letting me follow them and photograph them during the show.
More about Merrygold is coming soon, an interview with Per and Selma is coming up and
also a review on their promo sampler!
Setlist
When Nothing Of It’s Left
Creep
Lucky One
Raft
Happy
Along the Wire
Nothing