Although I have visited Sweden Rock Festival, SRF, every year since 2006 with the exception of 2012 I have never attempted to write a review before. But now it's time, so here it is folks:
We traveled from Ludvika on the Tuesday morning June 3 at 07:00. We drove to Karlstad in my Saab to pick up one additional travel companion and then we continued to Grums to change to the house mobile we had rented. We arrived in Norje at 23:00 just in time to get one of the last places at the Å Camping where we almost always stay during the festival.
Wednesday morning started at about 09:00 with the usual breakfast at the local tourist center followed by a walk-through of the outside area of the festival and getting the festival bracelet. The sky was very cloudy but in spite that it was rather warm and nice. Skin trousers, jacket and a hat helped :-). We headed back to our house (mobile) and started off with our traditional morning drink which is a mixture of hot strawberry tea and whiskey. One lead to another...
Following is a list of the bands I saw on this day and a quick review of the concert. The credential is a number from 1 to 10 where 1 is really bad and 10 is really good.
Band: Vdelli
Style: Blues rock
Review: It was well performed, but the songs were rather similar in structure and sound. The two last songs deviated from the other songs and was much more dynamic and interesting. That made them the best songs on the show!
Credential: 3
Band: Freak Kitchen
Style: Progressive Wacko Metal (my own classification attempt)
Review: The concert was funny from first second to last. It contained funny and ingenious lyrics accompanied by very technical and crazy/funny music and absolutely crazy and voluminous talk between the songs. But in spite the technical level of the songs most of them contained a melodic and catchy vocal parts. The guitar solos Mattias IA Eklundh plays are always true to his very unique style. There was no boring period at all during this concert, but some parts of the songs were kind of hard to follow because of the complex rhythms used.
Credential: 7
Band: Magnum
Style: AOR
Review: I have never been a big fan of Magnum. They have some really great songs, but if I listen to a them whole album I get bored. They are a little too soft for me. But, that is not true when they play live. Then they play everything just a notch heavier and that is just enough for me. I saw Magnum live the first time the last time they played at SRF. I had no expectations at all and I was really surprised by how I good I thought it was. This time it was not as good though. I don't know why, but it seemed that they were running on auto pilot or maybe they were not that inspired as they were the last time. They played good songs and played them well, but something was missing. I also thought that the singer Bob Catley did not perform as well as the last time. It was probably just a bad day at work for them.
Credential: 5
Band: Paul Dianno vs Blaze Bayley
Style: Heavy Metal
Review: This was a little special thing. Two old Iron Maiden singers performing Iron Maiden songs. Because of the title this could very well have been a contest or a duel. I will therefore announce the winner here :-). Blaze started the show. I have seen him play at SRF before, but now he played only Iron Maiden songs. During the show I started to think the same thing as I did the last time, why on earth did I stop listening to Iron Maiden when he joined the band? I used to think that Maiden lost everything at that time. The songs went bad and singer was nothing compared to Bruce Almighty. But during this performance I thought Blaze was performing really well and I liked his vocals. The songs were really good too. So I've been wrong all these years :-(. It's a shame!!
Credential: 7
After Blaze's really good first half Paul had to put up a really god show to measure up. I really dig the good songs during the early Maiden years when Paul was the singer so this should be no problem for him I thought. But, apparently I was totally wrong. The band did a really good job, nothing to complain about there. But Paul sounded really awful :-(. He ruined all the songs I have to say. This show was the worst I have seen in all my years at SRF. It was mentioned that Paul was going to retire from music after this tour. Sadly I think it's a really good idea.
Credential: 1
Oh.. and the winner is... Blaze Bayley :-)
Band: Queensryche
Style: Progressive Heavy Metal
Review: I just loved Queensryche during their peek around the album Operation Mindcrime. They stayed good for some more releases but after that their style gradually turned too soft for me. They suddenly did a really good release with the follow up to Operation Mindcrime called Operation Mindcrime II but after that nothing again. But now they have replaced the original singer Geoff Tate with Todd LaTorre. A though change since Queensryche's sound is so much affected by Tate's vocals, but a really good one I think. The new release is the best since Mindcrime II and when it comes to vocals LaTorre does a really good job. Their performance here just proved my point. The change was a real vitamin injection. The band really performed well and LaTorre had no problems at all to deliver the old and new songs with perfection. This was the best show this first day of SRF!!
Credential: 9
This review became longer then I expected, I therefore end here. I will be back with a review of the other days later.
Rock on!!
Credential: 7
After Blaze's really good first half Paul had to put up a really god show to measure up. I really dig the good songs during the early Maiden years when Paul was the singer so this should be no problem for him I thought. But, apparently I was totally wrong. The band did a really good job, nothing to complain about there. But Paul sounded really awful :-(. He ruined all the songs I have to say. This show was the worst I have seen in all my years at SRF. It was mentioned that Paul was going to retire from music after this tour. Sadly I think it's a really good idea.
Credential: 1
Oh.. and the winner is... Blaze Bayley :-)
Band: Queensryche
Style: Progressive Heavy Metal
Review: I just loved Queensryche during their peek around the album Operation Mindcrime. They stayed good for some more releases but after that their style gradually turned too soft for me. They suddenly did a really good release with the follow up to Operation Mindcrime called Operation Mindcrime II but after that nothing again. But now they have replaced the original singer Geoff Tate with Todd LaTorre. A though change since Queensryche's sound is so much affected by Tate's vocals, but a really good one I think. The new release is the best since Mindcrime II and when it comes to vocals LaTorre does a really good job. Their performance here just proved my point. The change was a real vitamin injection. The band really performed well and LaTorre had no problems at all to deliver the old and new songs with perfection. This was the best show this first day of SRF!!
Credential: 9
This review became longer then I expected, I therefore end here. I will be back with a review of the other days later.
Rock on!!
