Sweden Rock Festival - Day Three

12 June 2004

Sölvesborg, Sweden

So the final day arrived and it was a real struggle getting up this morning. So much so that there was no chance at all of us sticking to the plan of catching Kingdom Come.

We arrive as Sun Caged are sound checking prior to their performance on the Spendrups stage. Having checked all the instruments they prepare to run through something instrumentally, but Joost Van Den Broek on the keyboards is unable to control his laughter. All becomes apparent as they launch into The Final Countdown, with Van Den Broek cracking up everytime he plays the familiar keyboard riff. This seemed to have been a wise move as people are literally running across to check out who is on the stage.

Soundcheck complete Sun Caged commence their set with their own self titled song. It had taken me a few listens to get into their debut album but it is one of those where when it clicks, it clicks and you want to listen to it repeatedly.

Musically, these are five extremely talented musicians and whether they agree or not, the nearest point of reference would be Dream Theater. Hollow reinforces my view with some amazing effortless interplay between the band members.

We are however witnessing history today as this will be the last ever Sun Caged gig with two of their members. Keyboard player Joost Van Der Broek has chosen to take up an offer with After Forever and singer André Vuurboom has also chosen to leave. Both will leave huge shoes to fill. Vuurboom sporting a Sweden Rock Festival t-shirt today, does seem a bit like a fan who has wondered on stage to sing a song, but you can`t criticise his vocals, which typical for this type of prog metal, occupy the higher end of the range.

Mid set Vuurboom leaves as the band run through an instrumental starting with a high speed Flight Of The Bumble Bee. Van Der Broek playing a guitar style keyboard joins guitarist Marcel Coenen and seven string bassist Rob Van Der Loo stage front to make us all jealous of their skills. The speed of all three`s playing is phenomenal with Coenen in particular making it look like no sweat whatsoever and this interlude proves comical as well as impressive.

Quite fitting that the last song live for this line-up is their cover of The Final Countdown, this time complete with vocals. Coenen reeling of John Norum`s solo like he wrote it himself. My thumbs up for this performance is confirmed by the fact that they were one of only two band`s shirts I bought all weekend.

Sun Caged set list:

Sun Caged / Hollow / Home / Instrumental / Closing In / The Eighth Day / The Final Countdown

Having headed straight to see Sun Caged it was now time to get some food and to have a look what the metal market had to offer. As a result we missed the start of the Pathos set but arrive as they are playing Suicidal Saviour Lies.

Pathos have a pretty unique sound, with elements of trad, doom and thrash. This is topped off with the strong vocals of Paul Schöning, which are not dissimilar to Candlemass` Messiah Marcolin, particularly on Violated.

The rhythm section of Esko Salow on drums and Thomas Antonsson on bass is particularly tight. This is not unsurprising given they are also the rhythm section of power metallers Nostradameus, who had impressed me a few years back whilst supporting Gamma Ray in London.

Guitarist Daniel Antonsson also is partial to a spell of moonlighting, doubling duties with the more Swedish Death Metal Dimension Zero and perhaps the band members varying involvements contribute to Pathos` unique sound.

Unfortunate then that we had missed a good portion of the set which closed strongly with Revelation from last album Katharsis. Although slightly differing in style, I would suggest fans of Nevermore might want to check these guys out.

Pathos songs heard:

Suicidal Saviour Lies / Mask Of Fear / Violated / Hoverface / Revelation

Another natural break in our schedule arrives before the third Spendrups stage appearance in a row, though quite why Lost Horizon were playing this stage I`m not sure. Lost Horizon drew easily the largest Spendrups crowd of the weekend and being put up at the same time as Heart ensured the metallers were out in force. As indeed where the Scottish, with three large flags being waved at the front throughout.

Again, I wasn`t quite sure what to expect and wouldn`t have been shocked to see them come out of a spaceship! When they did finally arrive on stage with Pure, it was pleasing to see that, like the album shots, they were all wearing their distinctive tribal warpaint. The whole band had a uniform look, stripped to the waist and in leather trousers save for vocalist Daniel Heimen who was wearing a black vest and cloak (of course!).

Heimen certainly commands your attention, with his bald head and steely stare, resembling Pinhead from the Hellraiser films but without the pins. Heimen spends much of the set with foot on monitor surveying those who have gathered delivering his metal sermon.

There`s a bit of a buzz as guitarist Wojtek Lisicki has returned to the fold, bolstering the guitar of Fredrik Olsson. Lisicki is another imposing presence, with his sizeable frame looking like a member of Manowar.

Lost Horizon split their set 50/50 between their two albums, with Welcome Back featuring Martin Furãngen`s galloping bass lines and the epic Cry Of A Restless Soul being particular favourites. If the band look otherworldly then Heimen certainly sounds from another planet on the latter. If we thought we`d heard some high pitch singers over the course of the festival then it`s a good job the Spendrups came in plastic bottles as this guy could crack glass.

Lost Horizon`s foot soldiers seemed to be on patrol doing brisk trade selling t-shirts whilst wandering around the crowd. The band wrap up with the call to arms Sworn In The Metal Wind with its unique semi spoken pre-chorus.

Lost Horizon were visibly highly anticipated and did not disappoint. One would hope and expect that they remain high on the list for a Bloodstock appearance as I know more than anyone I had received jealous comments about seeing them at Sweden.

Lost Horizon set list:

Pure / Denial Of Fate / Welcome Back / Again The Fire Will Burn / Cry Of A Restless Soul / Sworn In The Metal Wind

I hadn`t any interest in seeing Heart until I read in the latest issue of Classic Rock some history about the band and that in their early career they were described as the female Led Zeppelin. I am from the generation that remembers Heart as the band with hair bigger than their soft rock ballads which would invade precious time on the weekly Power Hour TV show.

Two of those songs I was often confronted with were These Dreams and Alone which by coincidence are the first two we catch in their set. They were however presented in a much more digestible fashion today with just Nancy Wilson handling the backing to Alone on acoustic guitar.

To put the moment in context, we were in need of a sit down, it was sunny and sprawling out on the grass with a beer, whilst the melodic rock of the likes of Vain Glorious fitted the mood perfectly. I was also swayed by the fact that one of my bass player heroes Mike Inez was in the band.

As if to confirm the Classic Rock description, Heart returned for a double Led Zeppelin encore. As mentioned day one featured a Zep cover band and if they were here to see this, their singer in particular would have been completely embarrassed by his own performance when hearing Ann Wilson`s amazing delivery of these songs. One of the surprises of the festival for me.

Heart songs heard:
These Dreams / Alone / Come To Cleveland / Vain Glorious / Black Dog / Misty Mountain Hop

OK, with all this detailed analysis you might get the feeling that I wasn`t thoroughly enjoying myself. Well I was and must confess to losing the plot completely during
Children Of Bodom. I was so absorbed and busy playing air guitar, and er, keyboard (?!) that I kept forgetting to write down which songs they were playing.

I haven`t a great deal more praise to add to what I said about them when they played London last year. Again they took the stage to They`re coming To Take Me Away, which gave way to Janne Warman`s keyboard stabs to Hate Me. Once again Warman`s keyboard is tilted upright in order that you can see his fingers racing across the keys.

If that sounds like posing then it`s nothing compared to main man Alexi Laiho, though he has every right to. Laiho constantly leans back in guitar god posing mode effortless shredding through solo after solo.

I could be wrong, but I`m sure Laiho confirmed that second guitarist Roope Latvala is now a permanent member of the band, which is great news. The pair also play together in Sinergy so we can only imagine how tight they are likely to be in the future.

The rhythm section of Henkka Blacksmith and Jaska Raatikainen are just as impressive through the set and if you want to know what I remember them playing read below, I`m off to listen to Hate Crew Deathroll again.

Be warned, Finland is set to destroy Bloodstock later this summer with Children Of Bodom and Sinergy leading the charge.

Children Of Bodom approximate set list:

Hate Me / Chokehold / Silent Night, Bodom Night / Bodom Beach Terror / Sixpounder / Angels Don`t Kill / Trashed, Lost & Strung Out / Bodom After Midnight / Needled 24/7 / Everytime I Die / Kissing The Shadows / Hate Crew Deathroll

As Children Of Bodom`s main set finished we quickly made our way to the Spendrups stage for this one off opportunity at seeing Hirax. Now I hadn`t originally marked down to see them as I remember back in my late 80s thrashing youth my Hirax tape would gather dust at the back of my collection as they were distinctly average. However having met singer Katon W. De Pena during Testament`s set, when he nearly accidentally kicked over my pasta, despite his attempt at take-away destruction he was a really nice bloke.

Throughout the festival the rest of the band could easily be spotted as they were all sporting their own Hirax t-shirts. I`m not sure quite where the public demand came from that led them to reform and got the feeling they were pretty surprised themselves that all these years on they had been invited over to play this festival.

Anyway after a very long wait, I`m not sure if Hirax were shocked by the length of set they had been given or they were worried the sound was too good, they finally took the stage. Following that meeting with Katon I was enthused for them to prove me wrong but I`m afraid as they thrashed their way through songs from new album The New Age Of Terror .

Katon is full of enthusiasm and is a truly unique frontman in this genre, but their simply isn`t anything worthwhile backing him up.

Well if Hirax had been less than an unexpected disappointment then we were not prepared at all for the disappointment of Nightwish. Don`t get me wrong, that`s not aimed at the band as it was completely out of their hands.

As we headed over to the main stage we could already hear the soaring operatic vocals of Tarja Turunen whilst flame pots rose high in front of the stage as the band opened with Dark Chest Of Wonders.

Getting nearer, as if to go with Planet Hell, extremely black clouds were gathering overhead. Trying to convince everyone it was nothing wasn`t working as large raindrops began to fall upon my head and we took the wise decision to head for the large central beer tent.

Having managed to secure a spot on top of a table with vantage of the band, the rain drops turned into a deluge and the heaviest downpour we had seen all weekend. A mad rush ensued towards us and we were fortunate to be on the table as the tent turned into a mass of pushing bodies. Arguments were breaking out with people trying to get into space on the edge of the tent that just wasn`t there and with more people joining us on our table, Johan ended up standing on one leg for about 20 mins.

By the time it had finished Nightwish were running through their version of The Phantom Of The Opera, which second to Walking In The Air is my least favourite song they play and with business awaiting us at the Spendrups stage its fair to say that Nightwish were washed out.

I wanted to see Nifelheim more out of curiosity than anything else. I had a copy of their debut album and was quite amused by their primitive black metal meets early Kreator/Destruction necro-black-thrash!

The band assault the stage to explosions of sparks, all leather, studs, spikes, pointing guitars and grimacing. Nifelheim don`t adopt the full corpse paint, looking, more like they`ve been out in the rain and their eyeliner has run, which may have been the case with the preceding rainstorm.

Nifelheim seem very tongue in cheek with all their posturing and I can`t help thinking mainman Hellbutcher is like black metal`s Justin Hawkins. I`m not one to talk, but like Hawkins, Hellbutcher is becoming quite folically challenged and it was hysterically evil when he tilted his head back to hide his bald patch when I cornered him for a photo with a friend in the backstage bar after.

Whether they`re taking it seriously or not I don`t know but they had me in hysterics so they were certainly entertaining. I haven`t a clue what they played other than hearing Black Evil and Bestial Avenger introduced. As with Mork Grynning last year, I think it`s great that Sweden Rock included some black metal on the bill, but once again I think its claustrophobic barrage of noise is better suited to smaller indoor venues.

Apparently there has been huge demand for In Flames to appear at Sweden Rock and finally they are here, behind a volley of pyrotechnics that greet opener Pinball Map. It`s fair to say they were also high on Rockers Digest must see list, in fact top of Johan`s, which you`ll no doubt have guessed by the bias of photos.

This is great time slot to have, the light show being fully effective due to the darkness and the intimacy of the Sweden stage allows us to get a great vantage point. In Flames capitalise on this fully with a set from the same bank of songs as the recent Astoria gig, with a few omissions in order to fit to their time slot.

Vocalist Anders Friden seems more at ease with the Swedish crowd than in London, communicating frequently with them. He`s a live wire of energy throughout with dreadlocks whipping around and frequently rocking along in a semi-prayer like position.

Time on the road has left In Flames a well oiled slick machine. It`s hard to pick out individual performances because In Flames are a true band with guitarists Björn Gelotte and Jesper Strömblad, bassist Peter Iwers and drummer Daniel Svensson knitting together to make a wall of metal with subtly hidden hooks that pull you in.

Indeed the hooks of new album Soundtrack To Your Escape, from which five songs are aired, took a few spins for me to uncover and, further, once heard live, made considerably more sense. This is usually the mark of an album with longevity rather than one which gabs you first time but gets thrown to one side soon after.

Although I managed to keep track of the set this time, similar to Children Of Bodom, I`m completely immersed in this performance. Be it throwing devil horns along with the 666 or Episode 666, singing along to Trigger, bouncing along to Only For The Weak or thrashing out to Behind Space.

This is the fifth time I`ve seen In Flames and they just keep getting better and better. The fact that all three of us were heading home the next day wearing In Flames t-shirts was no coincidence.

In Flames set list:

Pinball Map / System / Episode 666 / Embody The Invisible / Touch Of Red / Like You Better Dead / In Search For I / Cloud Connected / Coerced Coexistence / Clayman / Gyroscope / Behind Space / Trigger / The Quiet Place / Colony / My Sweet Shadow

So finally it`s left to Europe to bring the curtain down on Sweden Rock 2004. A few of my friends had found great amusement that I was travelling to Sweden to see the band responsible for The Final Countdown. But, like many, that album and Bon Jovi`s Slippery When Wet were my early gateway into heavier things. Having moved on from them very quickly I approached a festival appearance by Europe in 1989 with dread, to be completely shocked at how heavy and in fact Deep Purple like they were live, so I was prepared to give them my time this evening.

Having first discovered it on the B side of Rock The Night, what I really wanted to hear tonight was Seven Doors Hotel so when the lights went down and the familiar piano intro commenced you could say I was pleased with Europe`s opening number.

I expect it remains that many outside Sweden thought The Final Countdown was Europe`s debut album, but although their actual debut was decidedly dodgy, it remains that apparently Wings Of Tomorrow is Joey Tempest`s favourite to this day and the title track followed, continuing the great start. That album was visited again on a three more occasions with Stormwind the pick of the bunch.

With the line-up being the original one, there was a great deal of interest in what Europe would actually play. Would John Norum play Kee Marcello`s guitar solos. Well the answer appeared to be yes as Superstitious from 1988`s Out Of This World followed, but as the gig progressed it appeared that album was as recent as they were going to get as the Prisoners In Paradise album was completely ignored.

Given the size of crowd gathered we had chosen to watch from a considerable distance, therefore it`s difficult to comment on the stage performance. What we could see was a huge Europe logo backdrop, Joey Tempest bounding about the stage and a big spotlight on John Norum.

We could hear the music however and the leaning to the rockier material seemed to be going down well with the crowd. Tempest`s vocals sounded to be on form and John Norum showed exactly why he is revered as a guitar hero.

There are no bass heroics from John Leven, though like Ian Hill of Judas Priest he should be credited for sticking to what`s required. Meanwhile Ian Haugland, who must have been chuffed to bits by headlining a festival he is usually comperes, was afforded a drum solo in which he managed to include the Ace Of Spades.

On the negative for me, although not for the first time this weekend a fearful 80s ballad was turned into something far more palatable by an acoustic version, I still can`t stand Carrie. Also, I appreciate Europe may want to honour their debut album, but The King Will Return is a truly dreadful song.

The first encore consisted of Final Countdown hit`s Cherokee and Rock The Night and it`s amazing after all these years how I can`t remember some things but I can remember the words to these songs.

Returning again, we are treated to a new song, Start From The Dark, and although maybe it`s going over the top to confirm reports that their new material sounds like Black Sabbath, the verse from this song contained one of the heaviest riffs I`ve heard Europe play.

Finally, as Mic Michaeli began that familiar keyboard refrain to The Final Countdown, we knew this was the end and the box of popcorn I was holding in the other hand to my beer went skyward, as jubilantly, and rather tiddly we celebrated the end of Sweden Rock 2004.

Europe set list:

Seven Doors Hotel / Wings Of Tomorrow / Superstitious / Time Has Come / Ready Or Not / Heart Of Stone / The King Will Return / Scream Of Anger / Sign Of The Times / Stormwind / Carrie / Open Your Heart / Let The Good Times Rock / Yesterday`s News / Cherokee / Rock The Night / Start From The Dark / The Final Countdown

I`ve noticed that the majority of my reviews from Sweden Rock have been very good. This isn`t just down to the power of Spendrups beer however. If you put on great bands, on good stages, give them good sound and a decent length of set, then it's no surprise that you get great performances. So often at festivals you see a band is booked you want to see, then they`re shoved on for 20mins with rubbish sound. This is not the case at Sweden Rock and hence it doesn`t matter if you don`t like the headline bands as the ones you do like will get a fair crack of the whip.

Thanks to Sweden Rock for another great festival.