Last night was the turn of fellow Swedes H.E.A.T. and they near enough tore the roof off of the Garage. The crowd was near enough packed out. Probably close to 600 or more I would guess. H.E.A.T. is getting proper big these days and I think it's all down to Erik Gronwall. If Kenny was still in the band they'd still be a small AOR band playing to a 100 people or so I reckon. I have been very strong in my criticism of the new album in amongst almost everyone else gushing and blowing their loads over it but even I have to admit that these guys are a real live tornado on stage.
They bring it live and then some and it's all down to
Erik if I'm honest. They guy's enthusiasm is just something else and his sweat blood for the cause attitude really paid off for the boys. Musically they've long left AOR behind and moved to a hard hitting type of modern melodic rock that reminds me of
HARDCORE SUPERSTAR somewhat.
Erik has a tendency to scream a lot of the lines which takes away some of the finesse of the songs but the volume was so ball bustlingly loud last night that you have to scream to be heard that's for sure.
The two support bands for H.E.A.T. were both pretty good by the way. UK's NEW DEVICE I have known for some time and they rock and have a very cool singer with very cool melodic songs. Unfortunately I missed about half their set due to miscalculating the stage times. I thought they would start at 7pm but it was actually 6.45. SUPERCHARGER from Denmark I didn't know but they were quite fun indeed. Their set started a little late which in turn cut in H.E.A.T. 's set by about 15 minutes. Anyway SUPERCHARGER were Rock N' Roll / Metal basically and a little bit like STATUS QUO mixed with VOLBEAT. Good warm up act and they got a decent response from a crowd who by and large had never heard a note from the band.
Soon enough the huge crowd was at fever pitch and getting very pumped as the intro song
"The Heat Is On" played over the PA before the band took their positions and tore straight into
"Point of No Return". The
H.E.A.T. boys played for about 75 minutes with no encore as there were a few technical gremlins but it flew past very quickly indeed although I must admit I was lagging by the end of the set! I'm an old man you know! They concentrated on their latest two albums with only a couple of forays into earlier material.
"Keep on Dreaming" from the first album would have been nice guys. But the new songs were super powerful and hard hitting in the live setting which took the band towards Metal territory rather than Hard Rock. Special mention of the song
"In and Out of Trouble" which saw
Herman Li take to the everyone's surprise. I think
Herman likes the band and they toured together before if I'm not mistaken. Very cool version of a great song it must be said.
Basically I recommend going to see H.E.A.T. just to see Erik tear the place up with his one man screaming wrecking machine act. That young man is like an Inferno all in himself to use a title of a H.E.A.T. song. In fact this week both Erik's tore the place up! Swedes rule hard when it comes to rocking hard and partying like there's no tomorrow.
Setlist:
1. Point of No Return
2. A Shot At Redemption
3. Better Off Alone
4. 1000 Miles
5. It's All About Tonight
6. Inferno
7. The Wreckoning
8. Tearing Down the Walls
9. Mannequin Show
10. Late Night Lady
11. In and Out of Trouble
12. Beg Beg Beg
13. Downtown
14. Enemy in Me
15. Eye for an Eye
16. Danger Road
17. Emergency
18. Breaking the Silence
19. Living on the Run
