It's always nice to attend concerts at different locations from where I usually end up. But it would be wrong to say that Borlange is the nicest place on the planet because we wasn't even out of our car when another vehicle skids into the parking lot and out jumps a bunch of gypsies and starts to beat each other up. What a welcome!

There was no physical violence at S2 at least; brutality out of a speaker system is easier to handle. First up, were the youngsters from BRODER TUCK. (FRIAR TUCK the band would have been called if it hadn't been Swedish) My guess was that they got the gig because drummer Fredrik Fredblaster's father is named Patrik Johansson and featured in a band later on the bill, that they wasn't old enough to get in to S2 on their own. I was wrong on both probably. The BRODER TUCK members were actually older than they first looked; all of them hitting the 20-level soon. Patrik might have helped a little with the slot on this night's bill but my preconceived notion about how it all would hve sounded and looked was all wrong. They might as well have scored this gig on their own. Sure, the music was very naive and perhaps a little too much Thrash Metal cliche-feeling over it, but the songs were really good. They had some really strong riffs and catchy melodies and that should be enough. It really is, when bands has good tunes and are extremely fun to watch the instrumental performance isn't really that important. And then, the fact that they've only been around for a year this was really cool! Definitely a band worth keeping the eyes opened for.

The revival of Hair Metal is spreading like fire in dry grass in Sweden and band after band shows up on posters, flyers, in magazines and everywhere. Far from all, deserves that publicity and some deserve a lot more than they do get.

SKYRIDE from Falun are absolutely one of my favorite bands in that genre. They have songs with catchy chorus-lines, hit potential actually because the songs felt very familiar, and that only from my last acquaintance with then at 'RockStad Falun'. A few listens on Myspace might have helped too of course! Again they were fun to watch and served a really nice stage-show. Or did they really? They have the songs, for sure.

But for the show they mostly have singer Christian Eriksson. Not only has he a great voice but his ability to captivate and draw the attention to stage is outstanding. The talent-scout's talk about star-quality when they choose their attendances, Christian personifies that. It was completely impossible to stop looking at him. The rest of SKYRIDE really need to step up a level to be noticed behind him. Ok, it's not easy to take a lot of space and move around at S2, doing that would probably push the rest of the band off the stage but you can have a presence without moving too, that I felt missing. Of course, you can get pretty far on a good songs and a great frontman but to hit the really big stages you need to be a unity as a band; to reach that SKYRIDE still have some job to do.

ASTRAL DOORS haven't been lazy when it comes to produce great Metal albums since the release of their debut Of The Son And The Father in 2003. In 5 years they've released four and a half high quality studio albums and last years New Revelation ended up really high on my rankings. It's just a shame they're a real turn-off live. It has nothing to do with the music because everything sounds perfect . And Patrik is a really charismatic frontman, when it comes to bring more emotion to the lyrics and one hell of a singer but his connection to the audience is completely missing. Even if it was a lot better now compared to previous times I've seen them they were absolutely outclassed by SKYRIDE when it comes to stage-presence and performance-quality. In my opinion ASTRAL DOORS are one of the best Hard Rock bands in Sweden today and I think they could have been one of the biggest too if they'd put more effort into their live-shows. I really would want them to blow me away, just once, be right in my face and rock my socks off but I doubt that this will ever happen. With this show it's almost the same as to sit home and crank the volume up on the stereo to concert-level. I might be over critical in my judgment because the crowed loved ASTRAL DOORS and responded really well to Patrik's encouragements of hand-clapping and screaming along. I don't know if this was the regular treatment all bands get at S2, if people actually were there for the bands or it was just a normal night out because the level of drunk was ridiculous. Perhaps that's the nature of this town but it's not the best environment (or state) to enjoy a concert in.

But ASTRAL DOORS served their usual cavalcade of great songs, New Revelation and Quisling from their latest albums have the propensity to be captivating and entice the crowd to sing along. Or at least scream loud at any given chance. ASTRAL DOORS must have had something though because I know I will stand there in front of the stage the next time too, hoping for the same. I know ASTRAL DOORS can absolutely do better than this and I hope they'll realize that soon too.

(photos by Cloudbreaker Erika)

BRODER TUCK

SKYRIDE

ASTRAL DOORS