Sometimes it's poor luck that there are promoters that's just as crazy as I am. There are not many out there that will steal both Swedish slots in the tour-schedule and book a band two nights in a row, as long as the band isn't named IRON MAIDEN or METALLICA of course. Rockland is a special place though and they do things like that. But ok, the risk of not selling enough tickets for this event was non-existent because last time Y&T visited the small town of Sala the place was packed and the demand of tickets was far from saturated. So what did Y&T do? Comfortably sat back and took a weekend of vacation because they didn't have to travel? Not one chance! The set-list included 22 songs per night plus a few more in smaller letters after the last song, sort of medley stylish.

When the familiar notes of From The Moon leaks out of the PA System everyone reacts immediately. First, because the time was about 20 minutes before schedule so half the crowd was still hanging in the bar, but most because of the excitement among the people present for what was to come. Hurricane opened the set and then the hits kept coming, beautifully mixed up with small improvisation and extended guitar solos. Things like that were more than welcome. With a guitar player like Dave Meniketti on stage there can never be too many solos.

The strange thing here, was that the people in the venue were so much into Y&T, they knew every note, reacted on every improvisation and each and every song got a strong reaction. No matter if Y&T served one of the many classic hits or something from the post 80's records. Afraid Of The Dark brought on a loud scream at the start and just accelerated up to the chorus and that shows that this band still have the ability to create music. Ok, that specific song is more than ten years old now but both Musically Incorrect and Endangered Spices hold the great Y&T standard. With this in mind it's strange that they're not bigger than they are. The songs are very catchy and should easily get stuck with anyone into Hard Rock. Sure, Saturday's concert got sold out really fast but Sunday offered more space in the venue. But remember, Sala is in the middle of nowhere. It will be really interesting to see what happens next time, if Stockholm gets a chance to book them.
The mellow introduction of Midnight In Tokyo gave me goosebumps. I love the song but it wasn't only because of that. The connection between Dave and John Nymann really is something special and the twin-guitar part was so clean and passionate it made my eyes water.

Dave almost made excuses when he announced a song from Y&T's newer records; Pretty Prison from Musically Incorrect was a Jimi Hendrix tasting piece and the slightly oriental intro was spiced up with incense, that's an effect you can't get on another place than a small club.

That's one more thing that's so special about Rockland, it is a very small club but they book quite big bands. You're as close that you can tie the Rockstar's shoelaces together, it's very intimate. Compared to 'RockHard Festival' Dave seemed to like this arrangement a lot better; here he had the chance to play more than just the biggest hits, he could extend the solos as much as he liked. And no, it never got boring. Dave is a demon guitar player right in the middle of Blues and Hard Rock with a great feel for melody. His tone is so much alive, everything is played with perfection and he manages to squeeze a little more out of his guitar than anybody else I've seen. That combination only a few master. And the fact that he does get a good match from John makes this band any guitarfreak's wet dream.

Bass player Phil Kennamore steped up to the microphone for Squeeze which gave Dave a little space to step back and relax. Like that would happen! Dave bounced around in the back looking like a kid in a candystore. Phil did his best to boost the crowd a little more and that fast song with Phil's raw voice did the job well. But it was a little weird to watch him when he start waving his arms around I couldn't stop thinking about the Muppet Show, it's something with the way he moves. As if his joints were a little loose or so, and his extremely huge hands that probably could crack a bowling ball in one squeeze.

There's no doubt this band had the time of their lives on stage, there were always something more than the obvious going on.

The few times I managed to take my eyes off Dave during a solo one of the others were laughing or up to some tricks. For example, while Dave was pushing his guitar to the limit Phil put his bass-neck straight into the drumkit trying to poke Mike Vanderhule. Or someone was trying to get a little zip of the Blues Juice (read; Jagermeister) in a break or so. None of these little mischiefs were affecting the music of course. One more thing that made this concert a little better than most was that the drum-solo was included in a song, normally this is the dead point at a concert but this kept it alive and still gave Mike the chance to show off his great skills a bit.

You might think it was a tired band that stumbled off stage after these sets. The final result was 28 songs Saturday evening and 23 for Sunday. Not at all, I'm quite sure Y&T could have played for another hour or two, I'm not as sure the audience could have taken much more though. It was really impressive to see Dave and the rest pull this off, they've been doing this for over 30 years now and they still sound really hungry and absolutely better than ever. Time hasn't affected Dave's voice at all, not one cracked note or harsh scream, not even at the end of the set. There were variations in the setlist between the nights, some songs were unique for Saturday (Black Tiger, 10 Lovers) and some for Sunday (25 Hours Ago, Wind Of Change).

This is the doubtless best arrangement for Y&T. A small and intimate club where they have their die-hard fans close and as much time on stage they want. No one can complain about not getting value for the ticket price, 5� hours over two days. That makes it less than 1SEK/minute for the limited edition two-day ticket. Not a bad deal at all and this was absolutely one of the best things I've ever seen!

(photos by Animal Woman Erika)

Y&T