Sweden Rock 2011: SATURDAY
LEE AARON
There’s no doubt that the original metal queen of the 80’s was Lee Aaron. She did such success albums as METAL QUEEN, CALL OF THE WILD and BODYROCK which sold great amount of copies especially in North America. When the 80’s turned into 90’s Aaron decided to reinvent her musical style into new areas and one album after another she found herself from the jazz and pop music world. She did enjoy some success before going into a kind of “hiatus” because of family priorities. Sometime ago Ms. Aaron announced that she’s going to reinvent her career once again and now she’s going to make another rock album. Lee Aaron was the very first artist performing on Saturday but there were still plenty of people waiting for her performance.The show opened up with “Powerline” , a nice hard rocker from Aaron’s self-titled album from 1987. Aaron was clearly a little nervous at first but when the show went further all tension soon disappeared. The second track was a rare gem ”Concrete & Ice” which was originally released on LEE AARON PROJECT –CD as an European bonus track. Everything went fine so far but then she started to cover her pop / jazz era songs and after a couple the atmosphere started to sink a bit. You can’t play stuff like that in front of thousands of rock fans, right? Fortunately there were few more rock gems played later on the set like CALL OF THE WILD track “Barely Holdin On” and the title track of “Metal Queen” which was now rearranged almost unrecognizable. All in all, this show was very ambivalent. On the other hand Lee Aaron did sing well, she looked still very good and her backing band was really solid but maybe she should decide if she really wants to rock or stay in pop / jazz world?
Powerline
Concrete & Ice
Hands On
Baby Go Round
Handcuffed to a Fence in Mississippi
Sweet Talk
Some Girls Do
Odds of Love
Barely Holdin’ On
Watcha Do to My Body
Metal Queen
Do I Move You
Bad Boyfriend
DESTRUCTION
The legendary German thrashers Destruction finally made it Sweden Rock. The trio should have unleashed theirs " bestial invasion of hell "years earlier but being the first band on the third stage at noon truly sucked for the band as the festival audience hadn’t awaken up yet. However a good amount of people had arrived on time to witness Destruction in action. The early playing time didn’t prevent Destruction from thrashing till death. The one hour set had been set up to cover both new and old classic tunes such as "The Fuel Is My Hatred", "Thrash Till Death" and all the way back to the 80’s material. The frontman Schmier tried to encourage the audience to arrange moshpits, but the Swedish metal crowd didn’t show that much interest in that.
STYX
Styx last appeared at Sweden Rock in 2005 – that was for many a show to remember, Styx being an excellent live act. As was the case last time, the songs sounded even better live than on record. This time the 1977/1978 albums ‘The Grand illusion’ and ‘Pieces by eight’ were celebrated. All members had their time in the spotlight – the highlights being ‘Fooling Yourself (The Angry Young Man)’ and show closer ‘Renegade’ sung by Tommy Shaw, the Lawrence Gowan led ‘Queen of Spades’ and ‘Come sail away’ and the excellent rendition of ‘Lorelei’ by founding guitarist/vocalist James Young. The band also has one strong rhythm section – Ricky Phillips on bass and on drums Todd Sucherman.
The Grand Illusion
Too Much Time On My Hands
Lady
I Am the Walrus
Lorelei
Suite Madame Blue
I’m OK
Queen of Spades
Fooling Yourself (The Angry Young Man)
Drum Solo
Miss America
Come Sail Away
Blue Collar Man (Long Nights)
Renegade
KANSAS
Legendary U.S. prog-rockers Kansas finally made their triumphant return to Sweden Rock this summer, the last time being 2005. The show started out with some enjoyable more-or-less- instrumental numbers, including the excellent ‘Musicatto’ from the very underrated ‘Power’ album from 1986 featuring Steve Morse on guitar, and continuing on with old classics ‘Point of know return’ and ‘Song for America’.. The show only got better as it progressed, the definitive highlight being two of the band’s best songs ‘Miracles out of nowhere’ and ‘Icarus – Borne on the wings of steel’ played back to back before finishing with ‘Carry on wayward son’! The band consists of Steve Walsh on vocals and keyboards, Richard Williams on guitar, Phil Ehart on drums, Billy Greer on bass and vocals and David Ragsdale on violin.
Magnum Opus
Musicatto
Belexes
Point of Know Return
Song For America
On The Other Side
Hold On / Peaceful & Warm
Dust In The Wind
The Wall
Cheyenne Anthem
Miracles Out Of Nowhere
Icarus – Borne on the Wings of Steel
Portrait (He Knew)
Fight Fire With Fire
Carry On Wayward Son
ANGEL WITCH
It was great to to notice that the old British metal is still alive and well when Angel Witch took the Zeppelin stage on Saturday afternoon. The band’s line-up has once again undergone some changes and now the Carcass guitarist Bill Steer had been recruited to handle the second guitar. To be honest Angel Witch is basically the same as Kevin Heybourne and Angel Witch will live on as long as Heybourne is willing to carry on the legacy of Angel Witch. The material off from the classic debut album was obviously dominating the the list and it was awesome to hear classics like “Angel Of Death” and “Baphomet”. As for Bill Steer, he ldid a good job with the classics and yes, he still does Carcass as well…
Gorgon
Confused
White Witch
Sorceress
Atlantis
Rendezvous With The Blade
Angel Of Death
Baphomet
Angel Witch
Devil’s Tower
BLACK LABEL SOCIETY
There are many things that have changed in Black Label Society since their last visit at Sweden Rock in 2005. First of all, Zakk Wylde is not playing anymore with the “Madman” Ozzy Osbourne. Secondly, Wylde was forced to stop his drinking for health reasons and there have been changes in band line up as well. As a result Black Label Society is now doing better than ever on many levels. Their latest album ORDER OF BLACK went into number 4 in U.S charts and the band has been on a hugely successful tour across the world since itsr elease. Black Label opened up with ORDER OF BLACK track “Crazy Horse”. It was funny to notice that during the song Zakk was wearing in a huge Indian headdress which did look very impressive. Excellent “Funeral Bell” followed next before a pair of 1916 ETERNAL songs which did continue the “crush” songs before Wylde switched his guitar to piano and then headed into “Overlord”. The song is a Southern type of ballad and it proved to be a good variety in an otherwise heavy set. It seems that nowadays Black Label Society do have a very good package together. Wylde is singing great, he looks healthy and his playing is as good as ever. Now, after nine Black Label studio albums, there’s enough strong material to choose from without having any fillers or cover songs there. The whole band is really dedicated to its own thing. It was really fun to follow bassist John DeServio’s and guitarist Nick Catanese’s energetic performance. It must be easier for Wylde now to concentrate on his own band instead of sharing his time between Black Label and Ozzy. That and also quitting drinking have already helped Black Label Society to rise to a whole new level and it’s going to be interesting to see how the Black Label Community will grow in the future?
Crazy Horse
Funeral Bell
Bleed for Me
Demise of Sanity
Overlord
Parade of the Dead
Born to Lose
Darkest Days
Fire it Up
Guitar Solo
Godspeed Hell Bound
The Blessed Hellride
Suicide Messiah
Concrete Jungle
Stillborn
NIFELHEIM
The evil twins of Nifelheim, Tyrant ja Hellbutcher, already did a show with Necronaut on Wednesday. But the evil twins’ own band Nifelheim opened the gates of hell and unleashed raging flames over the festival that Stryper’s blessing and praying didn’t help afterwards that much. Seriously the band’s evilness and darkness have been taken to the level where the cornish and amusing reach the peak. Nifelheim’s brutal and uncompromising black death metallish approach is merciless and savage pouring blood and metal. Even though Tyrant and Hellbutcher are known for being the real Iron Maiden hard core fans, but it is obvious the ultra brutal extreme metal warms their heart. However Tyrant had adopted the playing style of Steve Harris.
RHAPSODY OF FIRE
The Italian heroic power metal was on a long hiatus because of the legal issues with Joey DeMaio. After solving these legal hassles, the Italian power metallers activated by putting albums out and embarked on the short European festival dates. Rhapsody Of Fire dropped to Sweden Rock to unleash the heroic dragon powerful metal. The singer Fabio Lione definitely has an absolutely outstanding voice in the whole power metal genre. He is able to sing various styles without loosing any note. To some, the music is kind of corny, but otherwise heavily influenced by the classical music and the world of the fantasy. Luca Turilli is definitely a virtuoso on the guitar leaving the other hired musicians in the background. All in all,Turilli, Lione, and Alex are the main core of the whole band.
Triumph or Agony
Holy Thunderforce
The Village of Dwarves
On The Way To Ainor
Dawn of Victory
Lamento Eroico
Unholy Warcry
The March of the Swordmaster
Reign of Terror
Emerald Sword
THIN LIZZY
One of the finest things ever coming out of Ireland are the classic rock band Thin Lizzy and it’s immortal albums like JAILBREAK, BLACK ROSE and LIVE AND DANGEROUS which all do belong in every self-respecting rockers collections. Like we all know the band’s legendary frontman and leader Philip Lynott died way back in 1986. Since Lynott’s sad passing there have been several different Thin Lizzy line-up’s during the years and today we are having an incarnation of the band which includes founding member and drummer Brian Downey, longtime members guitarist Scott Gorham and keyboradist Darren Wharton, bassist Marco Mendoza, vocalist/guitarist Ricky Warwick (The Almighty) and guitarist Richard Fortus (Guns’n Roses) who now temporarly fills in for Vivian Campbell who’s currently busy with his main band Def Leppard.
As expected the show did offer a string of Thin Lizzy’s best known tracks. "Are You Ready" opened up the game and it was soon followed by "Waiting For The Alibi" and and one of the band’s biggest songs ever "Jailbreak". Warwick seems to be a great choice to fill Lynott’s big shoes because he’s not just a charismatic performer but his Irish accent does also sound very close to the original.It was also a nice to hear some three guitar playing on old classics, for example "Whiskey In The Jar" did sound really fresh with now having Ricky’s acoustic guitar giving some extra "spice" in there. It’s also great that Downey has finally agreed to re-join Lizzy and play these songs again. He’s having such an unique playing and beat what these songs were definitely missing when there’s been other drummers filling his place in past years. Setlist wise there wasn’t too many surprising choices but "Killer On The Loose" was one of those. The track, which was originally in CHINATOWN album (1978), is really an underrated classic and it’s not been included in the set list since the THUNDER AND LIGHTNING -tour in 1983. All in all, this show was an enjoyable nostalgia trip and this current lineup is working very well together. It would be more than interesting to hear some new material from these guys but it’s probably impossible….
Are You Ready
Waiting For An Alibi
Jailbreak
Dancing in the Moonlight
Don’t Believe A Word
Still In Love With You
Whiskey in the Jar
Emerald
Cowboy Song
The Boys Are Back In Town
Killer On The Loose
Rosalie
Black Rose
OZZY OSBOURNE
I Don’t Know
Suicide Solution
Mr. Crowley
Goodbye to Romance
Bark at the Moon
Road to Nowhere
Shot in the Dark
Rat Salad
Iron Man
Fairies Wear Boots
I Don’t Want to Change the World
Crazy Train
Mama, I’m Coming Home
Paranoid
