For the 3rd time I visited this hardrock- and metalfestival in my hometown.

ELECTRIC RELIGION:

A band with a female singer that plays very heavy and with powerful vocals that sounded too much inside the old brickbuilding at the site. The guitarrist is appearently a known musician and he looked older than the others. They had a bit of progressiveness in their music and the singer were clearly enjoying the moment. Okey but not more!

FREEDOM CALL:

Out in the warming sun, there were a bunch of happy germans playing happy happy trala-la-metal and it sounded really good! The singer has a very good voice and the audience and band were enjoying some good afternoonentertainment!

SKINDRED:

A crossoverband from Wales with a great (and big) caresmatic black singer. A mix of hiphop, reggae and metal that really got the audience waking up in the afternoon. The singer is a great bandleader and has a great conversation with the people watching and the looks of the other members of the band is worth seeing! Entertainment!

CLOSE QUARTERS:

Sleaze-hardrock band from Vadstena. Well they tried to be glammy and dirty but the songs were not very good and they seemed a bit unused to beeing on stage. They are maybe better in a few years.

NAPALM DEATH:

2:nd time I see this band of uncompromizing high speed crushing bulldozer metal that I have some hard time listening to for more than a few songs. All of the members of the band look like total idiots.

SONIC SYNDICATE:

Great to see this band on a sundrained stage; a band that gives it all and a singer that has a strong voice and is a good frontman in this band that plays heavy american-inspired "modern" heavy metal. Good!

AIRBOURNE:

GREAT to see this "new" band tearing down the stage with their wild flirt with AC/DC! This is as rock'n'roll as it gets! A band that lives and breathes hard rock-music and gives the audience a entertaining and total wild show. Great live-band!

BIGELF:

Had hardly heard this band but when I heard that it's progressive I had to go and see the show and I was NOT disappointed! Good organ-based progressive, sometimes heavy, variated rock and hard rock. Good stuff!

Last year me and my woman discovered this artist from Finland when we were in the country on vacation. We decided to go to a concert with him this summer and it also happened to be a beerfestival as well, lucky me! We saw 3 songs by the female singer Erin that combines pop with folkmusic and I supposed it sounded ok but not my cup of tea. It was an interesting mix though of musical styles and not the ordinary toplist pop.

Juha Tapio and his band played a one hour show that was okey and very nice to see and hear but there was not much action and connection with the audience from the stage. It seemed like a day at work for them. The music is kind of dark and melodic mix of rock and pop taht takes of here and there but mostly is more mellow with balladlike songs about love and misery, like many other finnish artists.

It was an new experience to see a concert in Finland and I hope there will be more since my woman and I have finnish relatives over there.

For the 2nd time I got the chance to see hardrockveterans Aeromith live, the 1st time was at the Sweden Rock Festival some years ago.

First out this evening at the newly buildt stadium was a bit younger band called Rival Sons which have released 5 albums and are an up and coming act who have got some good critical claim in the world of rockmusic. They played a 45 minute-set with 70's inspired enerigic rock'n'roll with a good sense of melody. I really liked it and I will follow this band forward.

As I suspected Aerosmith sticked to their formula by playing all their hits and I suppose it was was the audience wanted. The audience was not the standard rock'n'rollers but just ordinary people who have heard Aerosmith on the radio. The "real" rockers were preparing for their highlight of the year, the Sweden Rock Festival in southern Sweden. The show did not take off until the last songs and there was no conversation between the band and the audience, something that is very important to make a liveshow an really good experience for the watchers who have paid a lot of money. For the band it seemed like a day at work but surely Steven Tyler is really fit and a good performer for being 66 years old! Maybe this was the last chance to see Aerosmith live, I have enjoyed their music for 27 years and the albums will always be there, ecspecially their albums from the 1970's.

For me this was and "Hello and welcome!" to Rival Sons and "Thank you and goodbye!" to Aerosmith.

Hovet is an icestadium in Stockholm, laying just beside The Globe Arena. In the 80's me and friends visited it often to watch conserts with hardrockbands popular at the time.

Opening act was Graveyard, a swedish band playing 70's style psycho hardrock. Their image is a little too much 70's since they have the hair and clothes that was popular in those days. It doesn't feel...real. Their 30 minutes was okey, they rocked away and the more mellower parts in the music is needed so that it doens't get to messy. This was the 2nd time I saw them live.

Then it was time for Deep Purple with a symphony orchestra. I saw them live in 2005 or something at the Swedenr Rock Festival and it was among the best conserts I have witnessed. The orchestra made the music more powerful and heavy and they played most of the well known DP-songs you could want to hear. Unfortunately Ian Gillan's voice is not as good as it has been and I suppose that is why they did not play Child in time. There was a little too much soloplaying by Don Airey on the keyboards but the other solos suited well into the set. Although I don't get why drumsolos have to be so boring... The solo by a saxplayer from the orchestra was fun and also the violin-guitarduell. Steve Morse, guitars and Roger Glover was in a good mood and Ian Paice on the drums did his job. The concert lasted for over two hours and was worth the money!

Time for some Southern-rock! Backdraft is a band from Sweden that has recorded 3 albums and is a southern rock-band with a dirty, oozin hardrocking edge. I have once seen them backing up 2 members of the american band Raging Slab in Gävle Sweden in about 2005. Their show was great and you can really tell that they are enjoying playing this kind of music. Real rock'n'roll!

Hogjaw is a band from Arizona, USA. They also play a heavy kind of southern rock and at the start of the show they was like; what the fuck is this place and who are you? but the crowd liked what they heard and Jonboat Jones, the singer and guitarrist, seemed to appriciate the connection between the audience and the band and they sure rocked the place! The bassist Elvis DD is really a spectacular figure with his rastafarihair and energic perfromance. The other guitarist Kreg Self is the opposite, he look like a father of 4 or just like anybody you can see on the street. But he sure can play! This band is up and coming with 2 albums released and a 3rd on the way and it will be interesting to follow them in the future.

A great night with great rock'n'roll! Rockland did it again!

After a warm-up with hockey, Deep Purple and Pink Floyd with some friends in Hallstahammar we went to Sigurdsgatan to watch some heavy music. Opening act was Stone Clinch from Västerås. They played 4 songs wich were really heavy stuff. Reminded me of Black Label Society's Zakk Wylde-riffing. Not bad not bad, with some re-arrangements of the songs they should be able to get a record-deal in the future.

Sparzanza is a band from Karlstad. They have their 4th album out and play a kind of typical americanized rock/metal with heavy riffing, varying from heavy to soft and strong vocals. They have signed with Spinefarm records in Finland and they have a lot of bands that sounds just like Sparzanza so there's nothing new under the sun really. There were maybe 50 people attending, Västerås is really not a rock-city, it's mostly hip-hop that goes down there. Well, we 4 buddies like heavy rock so we had a good time listening to some heavy riffing that's impossible to stand still to:-)