As luck goes, it's obvious that two of the bands that I really wanted to see, both of them Swedish, had to come to Romania when I'm in Sweden. Those two bands are Sabaton and Therion. But that doesn't really stop a metalhead from her purpose, does it? Therefore, on the 27 of November, 10 days after the concert in Bucharest, I got to see Sabaton, together with support bands Alestorm and Steelwing, in Stockholm's Arenan.
The road there was as adventurous as it can get, apparently SJ and CFR are twins, whereas stockholmers can't give you directions for the life of it, but that's something I'll develop in another post.
Once we got to the right place (and that took a while), me and the friend who was with me (hi, Rin!) noticed a queue surrounding a huge building, half of them sporting either camouflage pants, or Joakim-like hairdos, and sometimes both. Cold as f**k, but nobody really seemed to care. And then there was a long-haired guy in a long overcoat, sitting right behind us. We became friends and it happened fast and unexplainable. But that is something completely different and not really to the point.
The concert venue was something I was not really fond of. Don't get me wrong, indoors was the only way they could play on such a Swedish weather, but I'm not really a fan of the dark room that is Arenan.
The concert started at 19 30 with the Swedes from Steelwing, a band a friend introduced to me a while ago, the both of us being Mad Max fans. The theme of the songs is therefore nice to us, but not the band itself. The Men in Tights, as I'll call them henceforth (hey, they chose it as an intro!) are not really my cup of tea. Surely, they're not bad, but there are two things that will stop me from really enjoying their shows. First off, there's no originality in their music, beside lyric-wise. They sound like about a dozen metal bands put together. The second thing that really gets on my nerves is their vocalist. Not that he's really bad, on the contrary, he can reach pretty high notes, but the problem is he does that one all the time. It kinda ruins the whole unity of the song, plus, you ain't no Bruce Dickinson, babe. Try again. Me no convincey.
About an hour later, the stage was invaded by some drunken-Scot lads. Their name is Alestorm and they're half the reason I went there in the first place. I like them quite a lot. The thing with Alestorm is that they're far from being masters in music, while their vocalist is far from being a new Eric Adams or something. Being none of those does not, however, stop them from being one of the most entertaining live bands I've ever seen. Their simple, booze, women and raids-oriented songs are catchy like hell and have the gift of making the public act pirate-wise, beer (pardon me, mead) included. Their gig (last of the tour for them) included a new song, called... how else, "Rum", and I've noticed my skeptical Finnish friend buying one of their t-shirts at the end of the night so they must've done something right, neh? (am I wrong on this one, Arto?:P )
And in came the headliners of the night, Falun-based band Sabaton. Hell broke lose, I almost broke a nose (not my fault they started a mosh pit next to me) and the Swedes did their jobs flawlessly. Although their war-oriented theme is not the most original, what makes Sabaton so special is their dedication to it and implication in understanding the realities of WW2, together with their tendency of praising soldiers themselves and their heroic facts, rather than the "big men" in lead. Sabaton's power metal is not any huge novelty but it's serious, stout and professional nonetheless. During The Final Solution, a song about the Auschwitz-Birkenau, the whole venue went silent, their lights up in the air, in memory of the 1 100 000 victims Joakim reminded us of. Little by little, Sabaton conquered their public once more. And damn did they do it.
The night was an awesome one. Ended with some "ale" (not at Nancy's tavern, unfortunately), and seeing a drunken sluttish chick trying to put on a strip-tease number to Holy Diver. But that, my friends, is another story.
The road there was as adventurous as it can get, apparently SJ and CFR are twins, whereas stockholmers can't give you directions for the life of it, but that's something I'll develop in another post.
Once we got to the right place (and that took a while), me and the friend who was with me (hi, Rin!) noticed a queue surrounding a huge building, half of them sporting either camouflage pants, or Joakim-like hairdos, and sometimes both. Cold as f**k, but nobody really seemed to care. And then there was a long-haired guy in a long overcoat, sitting right behind us. We became friends and it happened fast and unexplainable. But that is something completely different and not really to the point.
The concert venue was something I was not really fond of. Don't get me wrong, indoors was the only way they could play on such a Swedish weather, but I'm not really a fan of the dark room that is Arenan.
The concert started at 19 30 with the Swedes from Steelwing, a band a friend introduced to me a while ago, the both of us being Mad Max fans. The theme of the songs is therefore nice to us, but not the band itself. The Men in Tights, as I'll call them henceforth (hey, they chose it as an intro!) are not really my cup of tea. Surely, they're not bad, but there are two things that will stop me from really enjoying their shows. First off, there's no originality in their music, beside lyric-wise. They sound like about a dozen metal bands put together. The second thing that really gets on my nerves is their vocalist. Not that he's really bad, on the contrary, he can reach pretty high notes, but the problem is he does that one all the time. It kinda ruins the whole unity of the song, plus, you ain't no Bruce Dickinson, babe. Try again. Me no convincey.
About an hour later, the stage was invaded by some drunken-Scot lads. Their name is Alestorm and they're half the reason I went there in the first place. I like them quite a lot. The thing with Alestorm is that they're far from being masters in music, while their vocalist is far from being a new Eric Adams or something. Being none of those does not, however, stop them from being one of the most entertaining live bands I've ever seen. Their simple, booze, women and raids-oriented songs are catchy like hell and have the gift of making the public act pirate-wise, beer (pardon me, mead) included. Their gig (last of the tour for them) included a new song, called... how else, "Rum", and I've noticed my skeptical Finnish friend buying one of their t-shirts at the end of the night so they must've done something right, neh? (am I wrong on this one, Arto?:P )
And in came the headliners of the night, Falun-based band Sabaton. Hell broke lose, I almost broke a nose (not my fault they started a mosh pit next to me) and the Swedes did their jobs flawlessly. Although their war-oriented theme is not the most original, what makes Sabaton so special is their dedication to it and implication in understanding the realities of WW2, together with their tendency of praising soldiers themselves and their heroic facts, rather than the "big men" in lead. Sabaton's power metal is not any huge novelty but it's serious, stout and professional nonetheless. During The Final Solution, a song about the Auschwitz-Birkenau, the whole venue went silent, their lights up in the air, in memory of the 1 100 000 victims Joakim reminded us of. Little by little, Sabaton conquered their public once more. And damn did they do it.
The night was an awesome one. Ended with some "ale" (not at Nancy's tavern, unfortunately), and seeing a drunken sluttish chick trying to put on a strip-tease number to Holy Diver. But that, my friends, is another story.
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