Sweden Rock Festival 2019
A high-octane "Death Alley Driver" firing on all cylinders started the show
"Power" followed and a great perfomance of "Street of Dreams" next "Deja Vu" from the criminally underrated Rising Force album Odyssey. Joe Lynn Turner played "King of Dreams" from the Deep Purple album Slaves and Masters. Highlight was the performance of "Rising Force" from the Odyssey album.
She Came, She Saw, She Conquered!
Intro song "Set Flame to the Night" summoned the masses, opening song "The World Is Yours" got the crowd going and the triplet "Ravenous", "Stolen Life","War Eternal" sent them into a frenzy. Alissas stage costume had batwings like Gene Simmons classic 74/75 KISS stage costume.
Arch Enemy runs like a well oiled metal machine, Alissa commanding the masses like a field marshal,guitar players Michael Amott and Jeff Loomis bashing out crushing riffs and delivering lighting speed solos backed by the tight rhythm section D’Angelo and Erlandsson.
A pleased singer when audience performed the “epic Viking rowing” ritual.
"Death in Fire" lighted upp the stage with fire and "Shield Wall" from the new album worked really well in the set. There was pints flowing and long hair windmilling when Amon Amarth exploded into their magnum opus “Cry of The Blackbirds”.
Def Leppard turned Sweden Rock Festival into Sweden Ballad Festival.
Def Leppard singer Joe Elliot perforned liked a programmed "Westworld" robot shouting to the audience - You are awesome, all the time. How would he know? when he didn´t wait for the audience to respond? and a big part of the audience was put to sleep by the Def Leppard ballad attack.
Believe it or not the cheap ass Def Leppard used the same background screens with horrific computers animations that they did when they headlined SRF 2015.
Spellbinding Burning Witches
Switzerlands all-female old-school metal onslaugh Burning Witches opened the friday at Sweden Rock Festival and what an opening, The audience got spellbound by the twin guitar attack of Romana and Sonia and the rythm section of Jay and Lala. Best song in the set was the ever haunting "Black Widow"
New singer Laura made her live debut with BURNING WITCHES at SRF
"Wings Of Steel", a new song from Swiss heavy metallers BURNING WITCHES,The track is the first BURNING WITCHES piece of music to feature new lead singer Laura Guldemond, Parts of the video footage are from Sweden Rock Festival in Sölvesborg, Sweden.
First time in Sweden for US Metal legends Jag Panzer
Opening the set with "Far Beyond All Fear" from their latest album the Deviant Chord. Vocalist Harry "The Tyrant" Conklin delivered awesome vocals, hand motions, and audience involvement. All in all a really good performce. We got classics songs from Ample Destructione.t.c. but there was no sign of guitar hero Joey Tafolla or songs from the great The Scourge of the Light album.
The show of shows KISS!!
A voice echoed out over Sweden Rock Festival biggest concert crowd ever
-All right Sweden Rock You wanted the best, you got the best, the hottest band in the world: KISS!
The big black KISS curtain dropped and the massive stage dramatically revealed itself revealing Stanley, Simmons and Thayer descending from above on three suspended, octagonal platforms countless pyrotechnics blazed forth from the silvery pyramid behind the drum riser as KISS blasted trough "Detroit Rock City, the explosive thrill ride countinued with the shamelessly overblown party rock and roll behemoth "Shout It Out Loud". Gene breathed fire after "Warmachine" and "100 000 Years" made a nice comeback in the setlist.
Gene spit blood before he levitated up to the lighting rig during the mighty "God of Thunder". For god sake KISS throw the dog a bone bring back "Hide Your Heart" in the setlist (never performed live in scandinavia) and diss "Say Yeah"(unfortunately performed in scandinava many times)
Lights up on stage revealed drummer Eric Singer seated at a star-studded piano playing “Beth.”
A blizzard of confetti engulfed the crowd during"Rock and Roll All Nite.",the flamethrowers went into overdrive and cascades of fireworks lighted up the sky.
KISS went out in a blaze of glory.
Extraordinary singer Yannis Papadopoulos
Beast In Black kicked off with "Cry Out For A Hero" a blast of energy and passion. Beast In Black delivered their branded power metal / eighties action movie theme infested tunes with a stage choreography to boot it.
Brothers of Metal
The Swedish eight piece power/folk metal band Brothers of Metal hit the stage with their viking lore inspired metal. Ylva Eriksson (Voice of the Valkyries) impressive vocals stands out as does the their anthemic, catchy and epic songs.
Ritchie Blackmore- The Man In Black
Rainbow opens with the amazing "Spotlight Kid" with Blackmore’s wife and music partner Candice Night on backing vocals. Rainbow delivers a no-holds barred nostalgic set-list.
Highlights are the adrenaline pumping rock-metal anthem "I Surrender" the mysterious and groovy "Perfect Strangers and of course a killer rendition of "Stargazer"
Swedish keyboard maestro Jens Johansson is outstanding (from Finnish power metal troupers Stratovarius) and Chilean-born singer Ronnie Romano (ex.Lords Of Black) does an impressive job covering the three original Rainbow singers.
The crowd is pretty diverse in age and gender and of course we got the grey-haired old-schools that squeezed themselves into a classic Deep Purple T-shirt that tries to hide a lifetime of beers and fast food, some of them are so old that they look liked the just walked out from a zombie casting for the Walking Dead tv-series. Nothin wrong with that I hope I get that old, then I´m going to squeeze myself into a classic KISS or King Diamond t-shirt and spook you all at Sweden Rock Festival 2050.
Unknown band with belly dancer caught our eye after the Rainbow set.
Walking through the crowd after the Rainbow set there was an unknown band performing with a belly dancer that caught our eye. We came for the belly dancing stayed for the music. It turns out that polish band Behemoth that was supposed to perform on Rock Stage was stuck at a airport and couldn´t make it and the tunisian band Myrath (means "legacy" in Arabic) that performed earlier the same day on a small stage got Behemoths spot on Rock Stage.
Behemoths bad luck became Myraths big break in Sweden as the crowd grew bigger and bigger spellbounded by Myraths progressive melodic metal with middle eastern folk influences.
Footnote: all images are taken by me under the influence in the audience with a mobil phone.
