The annual Sweden Rock festival was arranged for the eleventh time in
a row in the beautiful landscape of Solvesborg. Approximately 11,000
(for each day) defenders of the faith of real metal from several
countries had gathered together to enjoy both the good old legendary
heavy metal and hard rock as well as new hopes. The festival has grown a
lot during the last few years and it is quite obvious the festival will
reach its maximum capacity sooner or later if the success of the
festival grows a little bit more. Once again the schedule of the playing
time of several bands had been booked at the same time causing some
extraordinary arrangements to catch some of them and definitely making
us run from one side of the festival area to the other! There were four
different stages placed idealistically a long way from each other. The
Festival Stage was of course the main stage whereas "Rock
Stage" was the second biggest which definitely had a damn lot of
killer bands. "The Sweden Stage" had been carried out to have
more medicore bands whereas the fourth one, the "Spendrups
Stage", was sponsored by the local beer company.
Thursday -The First Day
The first day was based on the free entry presenting and consisting
of the several unknown and even smaller metal names like Lefay,
Manticora, Fatal Smile, Million and so on. The first day was an
excellent day to get familiar with the festival area as the whole area
itself is huge and above all the southern Swedish landscape has
definitely turned out to be an excellent and right place to arrange and
carry out a huge metal festival. The biggest shock for both the
Metal-Rules.com journalists was an immense amount of vinyl, CD,
and DVD video sellers and frankly it was came quite close to us
losing our control there.
The first day was kind of crowned by the Thin Lizzy cover band called
Thin Lipztick doing the well known evergreens of the legendary Thin
Lizzy and had funny looking bombs on the stage. Of course it is quite
important to mention in this case when Thin Lizzy came up now that the
mother of the late Phil Lynott had been invited to the festival to be an
official protector. One more band worth to mention was heavy and
blues-oriented band called Savoy Truffle who came from Japan.
Friday - The Second Day
Freedom Call
Basically
the festival kicked off on the second day with the full force and the
weather was getting quite hot indeed. When the Finnish Metal Rules team
arrived at the festival area, the German power metal outfit Freedom
Call was about to start their set. Unfortunately the German power
quartet sounded more like the b-class Gamma Ray clone on the stage and
gave a negative and quite disgusting impression and above all their
pathetic version of Manowar's "Carry On" didn't help to get us
and several other metalheads convinced at all. On the contrary, it
brought a more obnoxious feeling towards the band. It is real obvious Freedom
Call definitely does sound much better on records than the stage in
the Sweden Rock festival.
Dream Evil
Snowy Shaw - Dream Evil
After
the embarrassing set by Freedom Call set we were quite busy getting to
the another side of the festival area to testify the Swedish power metal
new comer, but featuring some similar faces in the rank namely Snowy
Shaw (ex-Mercyful Fate / ex-King Diamond) and Fredrik Nordström (well
known producer from bands like: In Flames, Hammerfall etc ..) in Dream
Evil. Dream Evil just released their debut album called Dragonslayer
some months ago and have received and gained a bunch of positive and
overwhelming responses and even have been nominated one of the most
promising new bands coming from Europe this time. The Dream Evil set was
naturally powered by the material off from Dragonslayer
for example: "Chasing The Dragon, "In Flames You Burn",
"Kingdom of The Damned." Despite that the band is kind of
young and new, the members have a long historical background in the
metal genre, which definitely proved the band's routine to handle the
gig professionally without loosing the sense of humour and fun which
guitarist Fredrik Nordström showed on the stage and the whole compo
appeared to be in the trained shape.
Gus G. - Dream Evil
Doro Pesch
The
German metal invasion continued when the former Warlock front lady Doro
Pesch arrived at the stage and unleashed the gig by the mandatory
Warlock classic "Burning the Witches." Her set list included a
lot of classic Warlock tunes mixed up with her own solo tunes like
"Burn It Up", "Bad Blood" and the title track new
from the forth coming new Doro album "Fight." Among others
came obligatory cover versions of the Billy Idol's "White
Wedding" and KISS's "Only You." Doro herself still
appears to be damn good looking woman and it's very hard to believe that
the first Warlock album really came out back in 1984. The whole band
appeared in the real hellish strike and Doro herself was thrilled about
the response she got from the audience. Even though Doro was the main
interest (as well as target of the males of course) the rest of the band
can't be ignored consisting of Joe Taylor on guitar, Nick Douglas on
bass and Johnny Dee (Britny Fox, ex-Waysted) who all proved that the
band was obviously enjoying themselves, and their hearts as well as
Doro's were in.
Here
is the set list from Doro:
(not in exact order ..)
-
I Rule The Ruins
-
Burning The Witches
-
Hellbound
-
Bad blood
-
Only You
-
All We Are
-
Hear Me
-
Always Live To Win
-
East Meets West
-
Fight
-
Burn It Up
-
White Wedding
-
Ich Will Alles
When the metal vixen Doro was making the audience shout all we are on
the Rock Stage, the Finnish proge fusion combo Five Fifteen was on the
Sweden Stage playing the quite Led Zeppelin oriented stuff for the half
empty field and the whole set turned out to be a more jamming session.
Gamma
Ray
The third German metal attack in a row when Kai Hansen and especially
Gamma Ray entered the stage. The Sweden Rock festival was their
first gig of this year after being on a short hiatus and hopefully
punching away the new material. The Gamma Ray set was basically based on
the same tunes as having done on the "New World Order" tour
and of course a bunch of the most well-known ones from the separate
studio albums for example, "Man On The Mission",
"Rebellion In Dreamland", "Land Of The Free" and the
mandatory Helloween stuff belonging to the routine set of Kai Hansen and
his happy fellows.
Candlemass
The
reunited Swedish doomsters Candlemass received the prestigious
respond from the audience, even though the original doom legends have
been absent from the stage for about ten years, but no piece of evidence
could be testified at all as it was obvious the magic was there within
the band and the chemistry between the dudes worked damn well.
Candlemass definitely sounded majestic doomy and heavy indeed. Vocalist
Messiah Marcolin's voice is a known trademark of the Candlemass unique
sound world, which can't been ignored, neither his massive looks. The
reunited doomesters went through from Epicus till Tales by doing a great
deal of killer tunes like "Samatrian", "Bells Of
Acheron", "Under The Oak", "Solitude",
"Bewitched" … The reunion was nothing but welcomed to bring
the real Candlemass back to the nigthfall. Hopefully the reunion will
last!!!
Virgin Steele
Virgin
Steele… have always been a kind of mystery for us, mostly
considered as a copycat of Manowar (editors note: This is the
opinion of the Finnish Metal Rules team....and not mine! Virgin Steele
are fucking awesome!!!) some way or other even though both the
bands have been around the same time and secondly VS have never achieved
any huge band status in Finland. The singer, keyboardist and the leader
of the band - David DeFeis - performed with passion and a lot of energy
and the rest of the outfit mostly stayed behind him all the time.
David's keyboards had been placed in the middle and the front of the
stage which wasn't the smartest idea and actually looked quite silly
causing some difficulties to follow what was actually going on the
stage. Yeah guitarist Edvard Pursino looked quite strange as having cut
his long hair off, and he was very hard to recognize at all in the
earlier autograph session. Generally the VS performance was pretty good
and even funny as the show even included some swords - So it was not
disappointment, but …..
Status Quo
When
Virgin Steele was giving a lesson of the ancient Greek mythology to the
festival crowd on the Sweden Stage, the legendary British boogie (or
whatever it is now) group Status Quo stepped on the Rock Festival
to get the most intensive and enthusiastic reception. It was really
weird to witness how the front of the stage was totally packed by people
of all ages singing the Status Quo tunes like "Down Down",
"Caroline" and "In The Army Now" by heart and above
all to see dozens of bodies coming over the security wall and old women
in the tight jam in the front but singing bravely and finally see the
Gamma Ray dudes and Doro in the security pit jamming. Status Quo is
definitely ones who can't be hated, disliked or looked down on because
they belong to the institution of the traditional three cord guitar rock
hall of fame.
God Halford
The
first day was concluded by Rob Halford aka "The Metal
God." The start of the gig was rather simple, but stylistic indeed.
The legend arrived on the stage without any intros or other extra
things; just dressed up in the leather clothes with a lot of chains and
a real g-looking cap. He watched the audience for a while until
unleashing the beast by screaming "PAINKILLER" and the
audience went totally insane! The set aimed to please several old Judas
Priest fans, even though his own solo material from the Fight era as
well as Resurrection and
two songs from his new album Crucible
cut the air faster than a bullet. Halford's stage charisma and
performance was both extremely strong and really active only proving
Rob's damn good health and his ability of being in bloody good shape.
But when noticing a couple of dozens of photographers taking pics in the
pit the Metal God politely welcomed all of them by wishing "Fuck
you, Fuck you" to each dude there.
The band members were like having escaped from the local "The
Strongest Man In The 
World"
competition as all of them were heavily trained and looked more like
bodybuilders, but the band's tight playing and attitude gave a real kick
in the ass to Halford's aggressive approach. The set had been changed
quite a lot since the last year's strong live album Live
Insurrection which was a pleasant surprise. This show proved
beyond all doubt that Halford is once again making heavy metal, and is
again one of the best at doing it.
Here is the complete set list from Halford:
Saturday - The Third Day
When getting to the festival, the reunited Swedish hard rock combo 220
Volt were on the stage bringing some 80's once again feeling of the
local hard rock genre. Of course the dudes have become a little bit
older and the look had also been updated to the modern time as the old
hair style doesn't look that modern in 2002. By the way, their sound was
surely louder than any other band in this festival for some strange
reason??
Hanoi Rocks
Another
interesting reunion gig of the whole festival (besides Saturday's
excellent Candlemass gig) was the Finnish glam rock and hair band Hanoi
Rocks which once achieved quite a controversial reputation in the
era of 80-86 when the band was in its finest strikes until Motley Crue
vocalist Vince Neil's dramatic car accident in 1984 kind of destroyed
the band's existence when Razzle, the band's drummer back then, was
killed and band broke up after trying to carry on with different
line-ups. But the past is the past and is gone now. This year they are
back with another line-up and two original members namely vocalist
Michael Monroe and Andy McCoy. The band definitely rocked on the stage
and did a bunch of classic Hanoi tunes like "Highschool",
"I Can't Get It", "Tragedy", "Malibu
Beach" and also some newer material like "People Like Me"
and "Lucky". Michael Monroe was still in superb condition and
also Mr. McCoy seemed to be in rather good spirits. Sometimes he seemed
to be in a little bit lost or otherwise in "another dimension"
but playing and singing was overall quite good. The rest of the band (Lacu,
Timpa & Costello) stayed in the background during the whole concert.
Musically, this new version of Hanoi is much stronger than the original
one. Looking ahead a little, they plan on going into the studio this
summer/autumn to work on a new album, which they hope to get out in
September of 2002 with a world tour to follow. Time will tell how
successful this new incarnation of band will be but the start looks
promising.
Rage
After
the lesson in the glam rock, German metal veterans Rage started
their set on the smaller "Sweden Stage." The Line-up had once
again undergone some changes featuring singer/bass player Peavey Wagner
of course being the only original member in the rank along with the
current members drummer Mike Terrana and guitarist Victor Smolski.
They opened with "All I Want" from the new album. A really
heavy cut that really showed what the band presents today. They followed
this up by "Insanity", one of the best songs off from the new
album. Actually they did a real good medley set of their songs covering
almost every single album that they have released by now. Peavey looked
a little bit different now than before....in other words, to be honest
he has put on some weight now and he was a quite "big man"
with a true beer belly....but this has nothing to do with the vocals!
His voice throughout the show was great. It just looked funny when
physically top trained drummer Mike, "the animal" sitting
behind his huge drum kit, was the true opposite of him. To sum it up, it
was a great show and really proved that Rage hasn't lost any bit of the
raging touch. Actually speaking of the crowd size, they seemed to be so
popular here that they should have played on the bigger stage for
example instead of some less interesting bands like Girlschool or 220
Volt.
The Rage set list looked about like this:
Girlschool
At
the same time Girlschool played on the main stage. They have for
some eccentric reason survived to be alive after 25 years, despite that
they have been gone and away for some years. The band has three out of
four original members now lead by Ms. Kim McAuliffe. Actually there is
not so much to say of this band to be honest. A couple of classic songs
like "Hit and Run" and "C'mon Let's Go" played by
middle age ladies who looked more like a female version of Motörhead.
They played fine but definitely in the wrong place, obviously in a wrong
time and maybe 10-15 years too late….
Reclusion
Meanwhile Rage was raging and Girlschool hmm.. playing, the Swedish Reclusion
was terrorizing on the smaller stage, "Spendrups Stage."
Actually, Reclusion was definitely the one and only combo representing
the extreme metal stuff and it was definitely a welcome choice among
dozens of power metal bands. But unfortunately Reclusion's death / trash
with some attitude metal elements didn't get the both needed and
deserved reception and attention from the audience.
Wolf
Wolf, having young looking dudes in the rank, did a quite
dynamic gig with the old school metal elements tied up with the old
NWOBHM influences. Both the speed metallic influences with the mentioned
NWOBHM elements the young quartet sped up the whole Black
Wings album by including the classic Mercyful Fate cover "A
Dangerous Meeting" that King Diamond would get pale when hearing
this version…
Motörhead
Motörhead
kept the public press conference before their performance. There was
actually no big news this time to tell. As for the Motörhead gig
then... Well if you have seen a Motörhead gig, you know what you'll get
for sure. The whole set was unleashed with the song "We Are
Motörhead" which has quickly become a real classic followed by
"No Class", "Damage Case", "Born To Raise
Hell", "Civil War" among others classic songs.
Only a couple of things have been changed or were otherwise a little
bit different compared to previous gigs as a couple of newer songs had
been added to the more standard Motörhead set list off from current Hammered
album. The biggest negative surprise as well as letdown was the absence
of "Orgasmatrom" which was definitely real shame since the as
having belonged to the set for years. Also Lemmy had obtained a brand
new hat as the previous "classic" one was stolen some time ago
in L.A. and it was hugely mentioned in the news worldwide. When Bomber
was hammered out Lemmy's old friends from the past Girlschool also
visited the stage doing the background vocals and having fun with both
Phil and Lemmy. Once again it came to be testified Motörhead is a
killer live band with a hell of a kind of attitude along with a great
number of high quality songs.
Ted Nugent
Ted
Nugent… Well Sir's press conference was quite interesting and
hilarious as well. The man made clear to everyone what he was thinking
of almost anything. For example in the beginning of press conference he
announced: "If you don't like hunting, fuck you and get out of
here." Hard to say if he was 100% serious or just acting in order
to prove to be a real rock rooster, but at least every question asked he
usually interrupted by starting shouting like some maniac having lost
his mind even though his answers didn't give any proper answers to asked
questions…But very funny press indeed. Some news from the press
conference: new album is coming out about next August with another tour
to follow - maybe in Europe as well this time? He hasn't been to Europe
(or at least in Scandinavia) since 1978!! So let's wait and hope the
best.
Ted Nugent was a real man on the stage doing a lot of classic tunes
for example "Cat Scratch Fever", "Free-For-All" and
"Great White Buffalo". His current band consisting of Marco
Mendoza (Thin Lizzy, D.Coverdale) on the bass and (just 21 years old !!)
drummer Tommy Clufetos played amazingly together.. This was the occasion
on which he was most energetic, and you could tell that he was really
enjoying what he was doing all the time. Ted kept his personal humour
going on all the time. In the end of the show he picked up the well
known Indian hat and shot arrows across the stage with the bow…
The real "Motorcity Madman" .. yeah for sure !
Setlist from Mr. Nugent looked like this:
Lost Horizon
When
Ted Nugent pulled and appealed more to the older rock generation so the
Swedish power metal combo Lost Horizon instead pulled their stuff
for much more younger audience to rise their own fists in the battle
hymns. Before running to the stage, the Lost Horizon dudes made some
kind of ritualistic battle oath by hitting their hands together.
The bald headed singer, Daniel Heiman had adopted Bruce Dickinson's
style running all around the stage making the audience shout. Lost
Horizon's show was a pure power metal triumph in the spirit of "The
High Lander", only swords were missing.
Bruce Dickinson
After
a while it was a turn of Bruce Dickinson and his band. A lot of
things have happened during a last couple of years for Bruce Dickinson.
Iron Maiden "re-union", Brave
New World album and two world tours with Maiden. So now it was
time to do some solo stuff again when Iron Maiden is in hiatus for a
while.
Bruce had gathered the entire new line-up for the summer tour as his
last solo tour he did back in ´99 featured for example Adrian Smith.
The current line up of the solo touring band consisted of former
Skunkworks players Alex Dickson on guitar and Chris Dale on bass, Pete
Freezin (Almighty, ex-Alice Cooper) on the second guitar and drummer
Robin Guy. Actually all of these guys have a band together in England
called Sacktrick now. The whole set was started surprisingly with a new
tune called "Silver Wings" which is from new Best Of album.
More followed: "Back From The Edge" from often underrated
"Skunkworks" album and more stuff from new Best Of ..
"Broken". Compared to his last couple of tours it was very
refreshing to hear some stuff from every single record he's done by now.
Also the "have to play" Iron Maiden songs were also something
not being so usual ones on the Maiden gig like: "Revelations",
"Powerslave", "The Prisoner" and "Bring Your
Daughter...To The Slaughter". Some of those songs Maiden hasn't
been played in years! But as for Bruce's clothing, the man appeared to
have escaped from some asylum because of his stress free dressing which
looked very non-metal! Maybe because of his outlook it wasn't so
shocking to hear them playing Tom Jones cover song in the end of the
set. Overall it was a very strong performance with Bruce's endless and
never-ending high energy and stage charisma and definitely a lot of
surprises here.
Here
is the complete set list from Bruce:
-
Silver Wings
-
Back From The Edge
-
Broken
-
Revelations
-
Accident Of Birth
-
Dark Side Of Aquarius
-
The Tower
-
Tears Of The Dragon
-
Laughing In The Hiding Bush
-
Innerspace
-
Bring Your Daughter .. To The Slaughter
-
Tattooed Millionaire
-
The Prisoner
-
Powerslave
-
Delilah (Tom Jones cover)?!?!?!
Saxon
The
three metal and hard rock inferno was concluded by the long time British
metal veterans Saxon whose success in Sweden is incredible from
our Finnish point of view, the whole field was entirely packed. Saxon's
show with the hundreds of lights of the Eagle looked extremely brilliant
in the Swedish nightfall. This was the first time since last years
Wacken's performance that the Eagle was used. From the first strains of
"Killing Ground" to the last chords of "Wheels Of
Steel" Saxon eased effortlessly through a very varied and extensive
set list (almost 2 hrs.). Biff Byfords vocals are still amazing and he
can still reach all the highest notes without any problem. Bassist Nibbs
Carter was as crazy as always. He never stops running around as did
guitarist Doug Scarratt while Paul Quinn mostly seemed to stand in his
place like a stone statue. Saxon really rocked the crowd of many
thousand Swedish metal heads (and some Finnish, Germans etc ..) with a
attitude and energy that is amazing, considering just how long they have
been doing it. They showed here undoubted class and they really were
perfect choice to be closer for this year brilliant festival.
Set
list for Saxon (not sure about order) :
-
Killing Ground
-
Dallas 1PM
-
Court of the Crimson King
-
Dogs of War
-
Metalhead
-
747 (Strangers In The Night)
-
The Thin Red Line
-
Dragon's Lair
-
Strong Arm of the Law
-
Backs To The Wall
-
The Eagle Has Landed
-
Conquistador / Drum Solo/Heavy Metal
Thunder/Conquistador
-
Broken Heroes
-
Never Surrender
-
Power And The Glory
-
Princess of the Night
-
Encores:
- 20,000 Ft
- Solid Ball of Rock
- Crusader
-
Second Encores:
- MotorcycleMan
- And The Bands Played On
- Denim And Leather
- Wheels of Steel
The whole general spirit of the festival was extremely relaxed and
peaceful and above all the audience during the whole event behaved
fantastic. When another metalhead met another metalhead there was an
immediate conversation about the real metal bands. The gods of weather
had blessed the whole mighty festival event with the incredible warm and
sunny days…
Fantastic festival, fantastic organization (THANX TONY!!), fantastic
bands, fantastic audience. No need to say more apart from everyone
should get there next year!!!
All
I Want
Paralyzed