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!
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