Sweden Rock 2008
Drive 600 kilometres in the searing sun, spend around 200 Euro for a ticket and show your boss the middle finger for a couple of days just to be locked up on a huge field of suffocating dust, live in a far too small and dirty tent among 30 000 thousand roaring people, stuff yourself with fast food and get your ears blasted for entire whole four days? Hell, yeah! If this is the SWEDEN ROCK festival you’re talking about!
Now, many German Metalheads are a special kind of Patriots when it comes to festivals, keeping it national. Wacken, Heabanger’s Open Air, With Full Force. Don’t we know them all? And not many would expect themselves to jump into the moshpits of the “outside world”. Isn’t it comfortable to have everything in German? Well, get over it! Sweden, sacred mother of Opeth, Amon Amarth, In Flames, Arch Enemy and a heavy load of others should be proclaimed the mecca of European festivals.
For the seventeenth time Sölvesborg went crazy this June, celebrating the first night sinisterly with the Black Metal gurus of Satyricon, preceded by a crazy Korpiklaani and Sabaton show. And even though Sebastian Bach was probably too drunk to get onto the plane to Scandinavia and was replaced by good old rock band Bonafide, the ladies of Sweden Rock had no time to cry, since Volbeat hit the stage in nice Thursday afternoon sun, bringing the huge crowd (on the far too small stage for this band) to a frenzy. “Sweden, are you ready to rock?!” Sweden was and Danish Rock’n’Roll seemed to be hitting the nail right on the head, or was it the beer and the sun?
A couple more of the (not really cheap) Sweden Rock beers, a couple more of the popular cider, three rounds of Mario Kart Wii at the “play centre” next to the Gibson Tent Stage and then off to US legend Disturbed. David Draiman, perfect copy of Hannibal Lecter, sure was excited to play on the stage the giants of JUDAS PRIEST were to step on this Thursday night to let midnight riffs echo for more than two hours with pure and old school Heavy Metal.
The two following, still dripping hot, sunshine and fast food filled festival days were filled with acts such as guitar hero Joe Satriani, Death Metal gods Carcass, Whitesnake, Def Leppard, surely rocking their souls out through Saturday night, German Power Metal strength Stormwarrior, decisively different Apocalyptica, the band usually referred to as HUMPA (Eläkaläiset – yes, it is easy to entertain Metal fans at festivals) and bands such as Primordial, Mustasch and finally, one of the headliners, Poison.
Some Highlights definitely were the mind-bending, Anti-Bush campaign on the stage, brought to Sweden by industrial Metal gods of Ministry. And even though no one would have expected the success of a J-Rock band on a Metal festival, MUCC proved that androgynous, exotic rockstars can be just as heavy as European Heavy Metal spinsters, gathering a rather huge rocker audience besides 14-year old fangirls in the first row.
All Hail to the majestic Sweden Rock! Next volume is planned for 4-7 June 2009, so book your ticket early at www.swedenrock.com and prepare for Scandinavian Metal power to overwhelm you! And if you got interested in festivals outside Germany, maybe you should check out legendary Roskilde (www.roskilde-festival.dk/) or Finnish RuisRock (www.ruisrock.fi/). Belgium comes into the game with the Graspop festival (http://www.graspop.be/) and if you want to try out something even more exotic, why don’t travel down to Slowenia to enjoy the MetalCamp? (http://www.metalcamp.com/)
Katharina Resmer
