Sweden Rock Festival 2015

Hi again!

So here is my quick review of Sweden Rock 2015. I will just quickly mention what bands I saw and what my feelings were about it.

Wednesday

Abramis Brama: I really like what they are doing and they really did not disappoint live either. A good start of the festival for me.

Lillasyster: I have not heard much of Lillasyster, but I like some of the songs Lok did back in the days so I figured this would be interesting. This was not my thing at all I discovered. I stayed for three songs or so. I had no expectations, so it did not matter.

Hell: My festival soul mate said that Hell was good. I had never heard them, but I joined. This should have been my thing, but I did not like the musical performance and the songs was not good. I could have done it better myself ;-)

Evergrey: This is a band that I really like and their newest release is very good. But the show was not good at all sadly. The guitars were really too low and the background samples way too high in the mix. There were a lot of playing errors as well. It is okay for some bands when it's live to make errors every now and then, but not for this band. They are normally very good and competent musicians so this must have been a bad day for them. Pity :-(

D.A.D: I have seen them a couple of times before and they get better and better every time. This was no exception. This was the best concert I've ever seen with D.A.D. A really funny stage decor, the band performed at it's max, even though the base player was replaced by the guitarist Soren Andersen. They even burned down a complete drumkit :-O. Just watch here. Rock 'n Roll!!! This was the best of Wednesday.

Thursday

Steve Grimmet's Grim Reaper, with founder Nick Bowcott on guitar. This was a real treat!! I never thought that I would see this band live and it was as good as I guessed it would be. Steve's voice was amazing, they played good songs, and the the rest of the band delivered. Heaven was near ;-) The only problem was that Slash was on at the same time. :-( Halfway though the show I wandered off to Slash.

SLASH featuring Myles Kennedy and The Conspirators: Well, what can I say? Very good! They totally delivered. Enough said...

Airbourne: I did not like these guys in the beginning, but now I think they rock. They deliver violent rock 'n roll at high tempo with a lot of energy. No finesse, just raw three chord power rock.

Toto: For me Toto has always been too soft, but something has happened during the years. Okay it has always been interesting as a guitar player to listen to what Mr Lukather is up to, but that is not everything I need. I think they are much better live, and maybe I have changed during the years. This concert contained everything that they are known for, good fm-rock with a tooth. Really good.

Def Leppard: I saw them a couple of years ago on Sweden Rock and I was totally surprised how good it was. There songs are really great, that I did know, but they really performed the songs with a lot more rock edge. This show was no exception. Really good with a lot of good songs performed really well.

Ghost: I have seen them a couple of times before and I'm really liking them. Their first release was good, but I think the second one should have had more guitars on it. When I heard the new single I was really thrilled because it was much heavier than anything else they have released. The last time I saw them I thought that the pope (nr two) was not singing well at all. Now they had a new pope and new songs. The show, the music and the vocals was much better than before. It was somewhat of an surprise and a really good one. I can't wait to here the new CD.

The best of Thursday is way harder to decide and I think I'll pass on that.

The other two days will come in the next post. Now it's definitely time to sleep...

Rock on!

Bad blogger

Hi!

What can I say? I really suck as a blogger. I think it's fun to write to you here, but I always forget to do it. Before Sweden Rock I changed tactics. My idea was to write much shorter posts, but that did not help much now did it!! At the time when the festival was ongoing the mobile connections actual prevented me from writing, so it's not totally my fault :-).

I see that I get a lot of hits, but I'm not sure that somebody is actually reading my posts because there are no likes, dislikes or comments at all. Well actually, I don't care, I will continue here as often as I can get my old head to remember to do it. :-)

Rock on!

Time for festival

It rained the whole day when we drove down yesterday. Fortunately when we raised the tent it did not rain at all. But the whole evening was very cold and windy. Not nice really, but the company was nicer :-D. Today it is much warmer, but there has been showers every now and then and it it's still very windy. Not really the normal nice warm weather that we are used to have. But, today the bands start to play so then everything is OK B-)

Rock on!

Travel to SRF

We are now on our way. A whole day after travelling ahead. Well it's worth it!!

Sweden Rock Festival here we come

Well, I'm all packed and ready to go early in the morning....  Since I did not finish last year's review of Sweden Rock, this year I will blog it during the festival. I hope this works better :-D

See ya in Norje!
Rock on...

Nightwish - Endless Forms Most Beautiful - The Judgement

Well I have now enjoyed the new Nightwish CD some 10 times or so, so it's time for the review:

I stumbled on a concert with Nightwish and Floor Jansen from Wacken on YouTube last year. I had never heard Floor before and she really made a good impression on me. Power, feeling and range, she had it all. I liked Tarja for her operatic style, but I think in the long run it became just a little repetitive. I also had a hard time hearing what she was singing. 

When Anette surfaced I thought she moved the band in a new direction, especially with the Imaginaerum album, from metal opera to metal operetta. Imaginaerium was a true masterpiece! Tarja could never have done that record because it needed the new vocal style. The problem was, of cause, would Anette make the old material justice when performing live? I have never seen them live, but by looking at YouTube videos of old songs played live I think Anette did quite okay.

Enter Floor! I bought the DVD "Showtime, storytime", i.e. the same concert as I discovered on YouTube, because I needed the full thing with good sound and extra material. :-) It is phenomenal! She does it all in a very good way and she really fits in the band. This of cause sets the expectations really high for the new CD.   

During the first listen the first riff in the first song reminded me so much of an old song so I thought that the CD was filled with songs built out of lefter overs and reuses of old takes or ideas. But that was gladly not at all the case. Okay, I recognized things here and there, but it was more the trademarks of Nightwish that I heard. I.e. the things that makes Nightwish sound like Nightwish, and I like Nightwish, so that can not be a bad thing, right? In some songs I think that Floor is not using her abilities to the max, but maybe that is more because I like strong vocals. I think the record follow the path created with the Imaginaerium album style wise. By that I mean the operetta style. I can not explain the operetta style feel fully, but I get a feel that the songs is part of some longer story that spans over the whole record and that the songs each play a different part and has a different sound. Just like in an operetta. But this time the departures from the old Nightwish sound is not that extreme as on Imaginaerium. But okay, the last song "The greatest show on earth" with it's 24 minutes of playtime is somewhat extreme :-) Another difference is that I get a much more movie score feeling from Imaginaerium than I get from this record. 

Judgement:

I thought this album forever was doomed to live in the shadow of the almighty Imaginaerium, but it's really stretching it's neck way out of that shadow. Well done!! Endless Forms Most Beautiful is a really superb album. It has a worthy place on the mantelpiece in my home!

Rock on!

Nightwish - Endless Forms Most Beautiful

Finally I got time to take a first listen to the new Nightwish album. I'm doing it right now so there will be no review right now. I need some 10 listnings or so before I can deside. A review will be posted later.

I have always wanted to see Nightwish live, but I have not gotten the chance yet. A while ago I discovered that in november 15 this year they will finally come to Sweden again. So now it's time. The decision to buy a ticket was made in about 30 seconds :-).

Now it's bedtime folks!
Rock on!

Busy

Okay, so I've been lazy. Or fully occupied, or whatever. It still does not change the fact that I have not been updating this blog that often. I would really like to do that. Just as much as I would really like to increase my guitar practice time, my running passes, my time being with my family etc. Time is the key factor. It's a real pity that I have to work for a living ;-).

I would really have enjoyed working with creating music and performing it. That has always been in my mind since I discovered KISS in the early days and it would have been a blast for sure. I mean, doing the thing you really love and making money while doing it. I'm not talking about getting filthy rich, I mean just to have enough money to get by. The payoff would have been playing music. We only live once and it is kind of stupid not to try everything we would really like to, but why don't we? For me it's because I have other interests besides music that is a lot easier to make a living out of. The main one is technology and mostly computers and that's my line of work now. So don't get me wrong here, I like what I do. And I do get to play music as well. The problem is just the fact that the day has too few hours ;-)

Rock on!