Sweden Rock Festival 2015
Children of Bodom hit the stage with "Hate Me" and following it with great version of "Needled 24/7".We got top-notch musicianship as well as the first gig for Antti Wirman, keyboard player Janne Wirman's younger brother who is the replacement guitarist for Roope Latvala who quit the band just days before SRF.
C.O.B. Halo of Blood album has been universally hailed as a return to form for the band
Battle Beast took a grip of the audience with their chest pumping metal anthems.Nooras range hitting the high notes of Rob Halford with equal parts grace and ferocity. She visits a softer range as well (“Black Ninja”), which exposes a vulnerable side and also a natural contrast. "Far Far Away" followed by highlights like "Out on the Streets Again", "Let It Roar" , "Enter the Metal World" and "Out of Control". The icing on the cake would been if the performed their excellent cover of "Push It To The Limit" from the Scarface movie.
Noora got the crowd really fired up during 'Black Ninja' and it provided her with another opportunity to show off that powerful voice.
It was a day at the office for Def Leppard who didn´t even used their own stage set. They used three background screens with the most horrific cheap ass computers animations of all time and they are the headliner? We were promised an all hits show and got crap like "Paper Cuts","Promises" and "Rock On".
"Foolin´" , "Rocket" ,"Switch 625" , "Rock of Ages" and "Photograph" made it a little better, but still they don´t play the best Def Leppard song of all time "Gods of War"?
It was almost painfull to see how Def Leppard was totally steamrolled over by the next act who should have been the true headliner.
It´s cold the clock has passed the midnight hour, suddenly you feel a chill as the now infamous intro "Masked Ball" (Eyes Wide Shut) echoes out over the festival. Out of the fog on the stage appears five men in silver devil masks they start to play "Genesis" followed by the new song "From the Pinnacle to the Pit" when Papa III takes the stage. With the new song "Majesty" Papa III has the audience in trance following his lead.
Papa III had the audience cry for "Absolution" and brought satanic bliss to the crowd.
Papa III accent recalls Floki´s accent (Vikings TV Series)
Dokken kicked into high gear with "Kiss of Death. The set featured songs that spanned the bands extensive career, hits like “Dream Warriors”, "Into The Fire" and “Breaking The Chains.” Nice to see ferocious drummer Mick Brown back and Mark Boals "Yngwie Malmsteen singer" on bass and backing vocals. The only downer in the set was the dreadfull song "To High To Fly" that turned into a boring blues jam, Dokken could have played so many more of their fantastic songs during that time. Afterwards we went to the merch table to find out that they had no Dokken merchandise at all?
Mötley Crue brought the party with fire and brimstone and their own impressive stage set.The show stared with a fitting "Saints of Los Angeles" during "Wild Side" the female backing singers/dancers appeared for the first time and they would return throughout the show with diffrent outfits. "Motherfucker of the Year" fit surprisingly well in the setlist with all the classics, during "To Young To Fall In Love" Crue got the groove going. Despite Vince Niel can´t hit all the high notes anymore the party in the front rows (that contained more females than men) continued going all through the show. Motley Crue framed the show with an impressive pyrotechnic display.
Sixx used his bass as a flamethrower to set his microphone on fire and spray flames towards the lighting rig.
Saturday started with a bang when Frantic Amber roared through their setlist, based on their debut album "Burning Insight". When Frantic Amber played their latest single "Soar" the audience started to participate and sing along from there on it was a homerun the crowd grew more and more after each song they performed.
Riot is a legendary name in the metal scene with a career spanning almost 40 years, their crowning achivment is1988s Thundersteel. In 2012 Tragedy struck and founder and guitarist supreme Mark Reale passed away, the band continued onward under the Riot V moniker with the blessing of the Reale family/estate.. Riot V opened the set with classic "Narita" followed by "Ride Hard Live Free" (from the great "Unleash the Fire" album) new vocalist Todd Michael Hall (Jack Star’s Burning Star) soaring, powerhouse vocals was truly amazing and took "Fight or Fall" to a new level. Riot V performance was one of the best at SRF 2015 and their new songs like "Metal Warriors", "Take Me Back" fit perfectly with the classic and the finish with "Thundersteel" melted the audiences faces.
Ace Frehley drew a large crowd and was firing on all cyclinders, a great show, with high energy and rocking versions of both Ace's solo and his old KISS songs. Ace seems a lot happier and healthier than he has been in a while, and his guitar playing sounds better than ever. The Ace Frehley band was tight and each member had their own moment to shine.
Kicking off the show, guitarists Zoltan Bathory and Jason Hook tore through the unforgettable "Under and Over It" frontman Ivan Moody stalked the stage with an unmatched intensity and demanding full crowd participation during the charismatic track “Burn motherf*cker.” Moody told the audience that guitarist Jason Hook got his picture taken backstage with his guitar hero Ace Frehley.The cover of "Mama Said Knock You Out" felt totally out of place and the audience went silent and just waited for the trainwreck to be over."Burn It Down" saw the band steamroll SRF. It was the national day of Sweden and 5FDP helped the audience to celebrate it by displaying a swedish flag on stage that was brought by the audience. According to a swedish newspaper 5FDP had a bigger audience than the headliner Judas Priest
Judas Priest open the set with "Dragonaut" from the latest album Redeemer of Souls (a album with horrible production and to many songs that doesn´t hold the JP standard) a forgetable version of "Metal Gods" and a half/half version of "Victims of Changes" and then another song from Redeemer of Souls "Halls of Valhalla" with a chillin version of "Love Bites" Judas Priest is back on track. We get treated with two more songs from Redeemer of Souls the title track and "March of the Damned" it´s a mystery that they didn´t play the best song from the Redeemer of Souls album "Battle Cry". "Jawbreaker" and "Painkiller" stands out as the best songs of the show.
Halford paced around the stage with newfound energy and drive,changed outfits frequently.The stage set was disgraceful with Judas Priest standards they used the same stage set up as Def Leppard with three background screens showing the worst cheap ass computer animations ever.
Footnote: all images with the name of the blog are taken by me under the influence in the audience with a bad camera.
Kommentarer
Postat av: Stones
Helt klart coola bilder och en del ris samt ros! En skön festival summering med andra ord.
Postat av: Grimgoth
Du verkar också haft en bra Sweden Rock, sysn nästa år? :)
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Postat av: Christofer
Fan vad jag hade velat se Riot V, gillar deras skiva skarpt. Och jag får nog ta och kolla upp Thundersteel och se om den är bra.
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Postat av: Roseanna
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your great posts, have a nice day!
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