Sunday, June 30, 2013

Bråvalla Festival 2013 - Summary

Just returned from three days at the brand new Bråvalla Festival in Sweden. The artists are a mix of rock, metal and house with more focus on the rock and metal acts. As it should be!

Camped in a caravan, walked through the mud, rocked out in the rain, ate bad food, looked at the ladies - and of course the beer. Beer for breakfast, beer for lunch, beer for dinner and beer for midnight snack. All in all, a rather classic swedish festival behavior!

So which bands did I see?
*Rammstein
*Green Day
*Volbeat
*In Flames
*Airbourne
*Stone Sour
*Gaslight Anthem
*Hoffmaestro
*Rival Sons
*Danko Jones (partial)
*Ron Pope (partial)
*Editors (partial)
*Bullet For My Valentine (partial)
*Eldkvarn (partial)
*Johnossi (partial)
*Ghost (partial)
*Timbuktu (partial)
*The Sounds (partial)
*Mando Diao (partial)
*Thåström (partial)
*Avicii (partial)
*Armin van Buuren (partial)

Biggest surprise? AIRBOURNE
Personal favorite? VOLBEAT
Biggest crowd? RAMMSTEIN
Most fun show? GREEN DAY
Biggest disappointment? MANDO DIAO
Personal reflections? I don't understand House, having a problem even calling it music. Avicii / van Buuren = press play, wave your hand awkwardly, people go crazy. I just don't get it!

Notes from the road
- Airbourne delivered a full throttle rock show from start to finish. One hour of complete balls-to-the-wall riff-driven rock. No ballads, no filler. Great frontman, great music. A joy for any rock-lover and the single most positive surprise. They really gave 110% and were soaking with sweat after like 2 songs. They really got the crowd going and I was having a ball in the front, rocking out in the rain. The rain actually made the show even better, how can any band even make that happen? Huge fan.

- Volbeat was as great live as I had heard before. A great setlist with many of my favorite songs and the band looked to be in fine form. Considering the songs and performance this was probably my favorite moment of the festival. Best song, a bit surprising, Cape of Our Hero.

- Rammstein was also a big surprise. I knew the show would be great, and I knew the music would be half-good/half-bad. But to see the huge spectacle of the show completely overshadow some of the not-so-great songs and making every song awesome to watch, that was a surprise! Because we look with the eyes as well, right?!

- Green Day is one of the few bands I've seen before. The show was very similar, but a bit too long with a bit too many new songs. The crowd didn't really get it on the new songs, and went crazy on the old ones. It was an up and down show, but we had a blast in the crowd in the front rows!

- In Flames delivered a strong set with a lot of songs from the latest album, which is my personal favorite, so I was very happy with that. Powerful performance as usual and great crowd. I really missed Only For The Weak - the only thing missing to make it a perfect metal show.

- Stone Sour was also a surprise. They've got a bunch of good songs, but I was surprised at how well they came out live. Cory Taylor was a better singer than I thought, and a great frontman at that. Fun to have seen them, and I need to start listening to them more.

- Gaslight Anthem started out their set with a bunch of their best songs like Handwritten, 45 and The '59 Sound. Great so far, but after that the show could only go downwards. It wasn't bad at all, but maybe they should have saved some for the finale. Need to listen to these guys more as well!

- Rival Sons is a band I have never heard or seen before and I'm really glad I went out to see them because it was great. Very good songs and a great live sound, and it struck me at how cool it would be to see them at a hot and sweaty club gig. Will listen more!

Sunday, June 23, 2013

Countdown to Bråvalla #4 - Rammstein

From Germany with love, no sorry, from Germany with Firepower! That's what I meant. Because firepower is one thing Rammstein always brings. That and industrial rock as cold and hard as only pure metal can be. It's only fitting they bring enough fire to warm up all of Sweden during an entire winter.

I haven't seen Rammstein live before so I want to see flamethrowers, bombs, sex, blood, sweat and tears. Oh, and some songs to go with that:

Du Hast

Feuer Frei

Sonne

Ich Will

Amerika

Monday, June 17, 2013

Traveller - new album from Jorn

Norweigan hard rockers Jorn has just released a new album called Traveller. It's a 10 song kick-in-the-face album with one of the best singers out there, Jorn Lande.
And it really is Jorn himself that is the star of the album, as far as I'm concerned almost every song ever written can sound better with Jorn singing it. Such powerful vocals! The songs doesn't even have to be that good (as is the case with some of the songs on Traveller) - they still sound awesome.

Don't know who Jorn Lande is? Then look into some of his other bands like Masterplan, Ark, Allen/Lande and of course all of his work with Tobias Sammet in the Avantasia project. Do that now.

Back to Traveller; the best song is Monsoon. No doubt, no question, no competition. Other good songs worth noticing is Make Your Engine Scream, Traveller and Overload.

Traveller (full album)

Overload @ 00:00
Traveller @ 09:52
Make Your Engine Scream @ 19:59
Monsoon @ 39:11

Sunday, June 16, 2013

Countdown to Bråvalla #3 - Airbourne

Next band on the list is Airbourne! With AC/DC as their biggest influence they bring a high-powered and energetic performance all the way from Australia to Sweden. A lot of great songs, but here's a couple I wanna hear:

Blonde, Bad and Beautiful

Runnin' Wild

Too Much, Too Young, Too Fast

Live It Up

Woman Like That

Thursday, June 13, 2013

Countdown to Bråvalla #2 - The Gaslight Anthem

Next band on my countdown list, and a must-see on Bravalla, is the Gaslight Anthem. A relatively new band with a great sound and some solid song-writing. Hope to hear my favorite song of theirs, Handwritten. That one kicks some major ass!

Handwritten

The '59 Sounds

"45"

The Boxer

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Tuesday, June 11, 2013

Countdown to Bråvalla #1 - Green Day

Bråvalla Festival is coming up on June 27-28-29th. Three days of really cool music, lots of great bands! Really looking forward to it, and so here's a countdown with my favorite artists performing.

Countdown band #1 - Green Day
Seen them once before in concert here in Sweden. Great performance - lots of energy, fun, good songs, cursing and a wild crowd! Hoping to see that x10 at Bråvalla!!

Jesus of Suburbia

Know Your Enemy

Basket Case

American Idiot

Nice Guys Finish Last

Are We The Waiting / St. Jimmy

BRÅVALLA FESTIVAL ON SPOTIFY:

Sunday, June 2, 2013

Two songs that shouldn't be here!

This is far from the music that I listen to… But with two great frontmen from my music "safe zone" these songs are actually pretty good! 

And yes... I hate myself right now.

Unbreakable -
Marien Baker feat. Shaun Frank (The Envy)

In And Out Of Love -
Armin van Buuren feat. Sharon den Adel (Within Temptation)