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Sweden Rock Festival
Sölvesborg, Sweden
June 4-7, 2008
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How beautiful is Europe in the summer!
The sun is shinning, it’s warm, girls are light-dressed, holidays begin…and summer Festivals begin! |
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This Year I decided to go back to the Sweden Rock Festival in Sölvesborg.
OK, it’s far from home and it’s one of the most expensive fests but…It’s always the best!
They always have exclusive bands, not playing anywhere else in Europe, and it’s very well organized.
In other words, it’s absolutely worth, and value for money. |
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The last time I was here was in 2003, seeing Whitesnake’s and Twisted Sister’s comebacks.
This time they had Poison playing their only show in Europe in 15 years, and that was enough reason for me!
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So we planned to go the with my friend Christelle as soon as Poison was announced, I think it was in March 2008.
We book low cost flights with Sterling and SAS to Copenhaguen, from there it’s only a two hour train ride to Sölvesborg.
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We first planned to do the four days of the Sweden Rock Festival, but the 4-day tickets were sold out, so we bought just a 3-day ticket. Anyway, there were not many intresting bands for us on the first day, except for Airbourne.
Then the expected day came! We boarded our Sterling plane on Wednesday 8 of June. We arrived in Copenhagen and had the whole day to visit the city.
By 8pm we took the train to Sölvesborg, and during the ride we met 2 very cool guys: Alfonso from Spain and Omar from Mexico.
When we got to Sölvesborg there were no more shuttle buses to the Sweden Rock fest, which is 12 kilometers from the train station. But we were lucky, as a local guy gave us a lift to the Festival site. |
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Then we got the camping ground, planted our tents and started soaking up the atmosphere of the Festival.
Sweden Rock is, like other summer festivals, a big open air party. Of course the main reason to go is the bands that are playing, but even if you don’t see most shows, the party is amazing and the atmosphere is unique. |
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You see all kinds of people in summer festivals: people dressed for the occasion, families with children, metalheads from all ages… The funny thing of Sweden Rock is that, unlike in Germany, you don’t see many thrashers: There are a lot of Glam Metal fans and Black metal Fans, but few Metalheads with just a denim jacket and a Mötorhead shirt. |
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This year there were five stages. The biggest was the Sweden Stage, the second was the Rock Stage, the two smaller were called the Zepellin stage and the , and finally there was a tent named. |
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We had no ticket for the first night but we heard and could see a bit of Satyricon. I’m not really into Black Metal, but I have to say that they’re a good live band. Their music is melodic and still full of energy. I’ll try to catch them again some time.
We had some beers with the guys we met on the train and then went to sleep, as the next day started with a concert from the ex-Skid Row Sebastian Bach. |
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So I first woke up at about 4am because the sun was shinning! Yes, the first day in the north is always a surprise! The night is never really dark, and in Southern Sweden the sun goes down at about 11pm and starts to rise around 3! So just fell asleep again until 10 am. |
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Sebastian Bach was scheduled to play at 1pm, so Christelle and I were in front the rock stage about half hour earlier…only to find out that Bach missed his plane so his show was cancelled!
Well, as the next interesting band was Primal Fear a couple of hours later, we decided to head to the beach. |
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Sölvesborg beach has a lot of holiday houses and is a great place to relax, but during Sweden Rock Festival it becomes the most Rock n’Roll beach in the world: beer everywhere, music at high volume, and metalheads from all over Sweden, Europe and the world. Still, there were some families there not attending the festival, and didn’t seemed to complaint about their metal neighbours. Let’s just say that metal is more common in some countries of the world than others… |
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