Hi again!
Well, I haven't had much time for this lately. Too much gigging and rehearsals going on. Work and normal life to of cause :-). Anyways, I started a review of this years Sweden Rock Festival and I will try to finish it. Now it's time for day two of four!!
Thursday and day two of the festival. This day the Swedish summer finally started to show itself. It became really hot, by Swedish standards. Just one shower disturbed the nice weather.
Band: Pretty Maids
Style: Heavy Metal
Review: I really loved the first couple of records they did in the early days, then I somehow lost track of them. I don't really remember why, I just forgot about them. Must have been some bad record I guess, but I really don't recall.
I really loved the beginning of the concert, they had a lot of energy and that old trademark sound. I did not recognize the songs so they must have been from a new record. I remembered that I said to myself that I have to check them out again when I get home. So far so good. The singer did not sound exactly like he did back in the days and in the middle of the concert I realized that it was not the same singer. But he did a really good job. From that smashing start the show slowly changed one step at a time into a sleepy ballad swamp. I decided to head for the bar instead. But after just walking 10 meters or so, I heard them riffing out the absolutely fabulous intro to the song Back to back. Yeah!! They blasted out some more old classics before they called it a day. The end was worth the wait!
Credential: 5
Band: Transantlantic
Style: Progressive rock
Review: After falling in love with Rush and Dream Theater and the likes I have widen my taste with more progressive and fusion music. I have never really heard Transatlantic before, but I saw a concert on Youtube to prepare myself for this concert. I really loved this show! It was very varied and of cause full of progressive sounds. The songs were really long, of cause, but really good. I don't know their songs, but it seemed like they did not play that many songs at all :-). Portnoy was in a good mood also. He fooled around and made fills on his toms with his hi-hat stand etc. The drum placement on the front right side of the stage, with Mike's side to the audience was also entertaining. A really fun and uplifting concert.
Credential: 7
Band: Black Stone Cherry
Style: Southern Hard Rock
Review: These guys were new to me. I had heard a couple of songs in the Sweden Rock Spotify playlist, that's it. The sound was unexpected. I thought they would sound like a classical southern rock. They did, but with a much more aggressive and heavier sound. Perfect!! I've always liked the southern style, but it tends to get a little too lame sometimes. I really liked the songs on Spotify. The show contained the same aggressiveness and even a couple of notches more. The band members had a really wild stage show and unfortunately it affected their performance. Okay, it was cool and funny for a while, but really tiresome in the long run. I don't need the bands to play perfectly, I mean it's rock 'n roll, but still, I have a limit to what I can accept and this was just a little below that line. But these guys are young and they will soon hopefully realize that the visual part is not everything. I've listened more to their songs after Sweden Rock and I really like this!!!
Credential: 6
Band: Eyes Wide Open
Style: Melodic death metal
Review: Through friends of my relatives and a AC/DC song at a party I know these guys. Therefore I thought I had to pay my respect to them and visit their show. I don't like death metal and I hate growl!! But, when I prepared myself for this concert I found out that these guys had really evolved. I listened to their newest release "Aftermath" and I was really surprised. The songs were really good and the growling did not disturb me that much. It was a nice kind of growl mixed with clean chorus vocals. I saw them perform a couple of years ago in a tent at Sweden Rock Festival. This was a totally different experience!! They showed much more stage presence and performed much better. Unfortunately I missed the start of the show and I had to leave before the end, nature called. Really fun to see people doing the thing they love doing!! Good luck guys and rock on!!
Credential: 7
Band: Alter bridge
Style: Heavy Rock
Review: This was a really bad thing!! The baddest thing at Sweden Rock Festival 2014!! Alter bridge played at the same time as Masterplan :-((. I really like both of these bands. I've seen Alter bridge before and they are really awesome, but since I've never seen Masterplan before I had to to choose Masterplan this time. This review is a little unfair since I only saw the first two songs as I was passing by heading for the Masterplan stage, but I still wanted to write it! I discovered Alter bridge by accident actually, but I really dig what they do. Their songs are really versatile and the musicianship is excellent!! Well, what can I say? What I heard this time was also excellent!!
Credential: 8
Band: Masterplan
Style: Power Metal
Review: The first thing I heard with Masterplan was the record Aeronautics. It was absolutely fantastic!! Then I heard "Back for life", it was also really good! But then I forgot about them for a while. I prepared myself by listening to their newest record, also a very good record. The show was really good and perfectly performed. I did not recognize all the songs, but the ones I recalled, they performed really well. The new singer did cope really good with the old and new songs. He did a perfekt job!! Nothing to complain about here, Pure German quality though and through. Ah, and with a Swedish touch :-)
Credential: 8
Band: Alice Cooper
Style: Hard Horror Rock
Review: I've never really been a fan of Alice. The 70's music was too strange, mystical and soft for me. The 80's songs where good, but had too much hit focus for me. I visited a concert sometime around 2000, Brutal Planet. I did not understand it at all. All the songs where weaved into each other and sounded almost like one long continuous song. In the middle of the show he just turned back the time and performed old classics. Strange concert structure. I've seen this concert on DVD after that and I have really started to like it. After Brutal Planet I have not followed Alice's releases. I saw him on Sweden Rock some years ago, it was okay. This concert was much much better then everything else I've seen with Alice. The songs were varied and the show was spiced with his normal effects. He spent quite some time in the the middle of the concert celebrating old dead rock heroes by covering their songs. That could have been a bad thing, but he turned it to a success somehow!!
Credential: 8
Rock on!!
