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POISON
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| Concerts 2008 | Poison page | Another Band |
| < Previous: Avantasia | Sweden Rock 2008 | Concerts by year |
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I couldn’t believe that I was finally going to see Poison.This was like a dream come true. My father is a rock fan so I was raised listening to bands like the Rolling Stones or The Who. But when I was 10 I saw the Uskinny Bop video on the Mtv and began choosing my own music. Yes, Poison is the band that got me into hard rock and and metal. |
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Seeing Poison in Europe is something exceptional, everyone was excited about it. Poison hadn’t toured Europe since the Flesh & Blood album, which means 18 years. Exactly the same amount of time I’ve been listening to their music. And in 2008 they were playing one and only one date in Europe: The Sweden Rock festival. I had to be there. |
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As I wanted to be among the first rows for Poison, I watched the end of Avantasia from the Sweden Stage, right in front of the Rock stage. I was right to do so. As minutes went by, more and more people began to gather there. A giant screen began to show 60’s images of people eating “Poison” and saying that they loved “Poison”. Then we had a warning about the show contents stating at the end “Would you expect anything less?” |
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Lights finally went down and the legendary intro roared while pictures of tonight’s characters were show on the screen: Rikki Rockett, Bobby Dall, C.C. Deville and Bret Michaels. Just as I was expecting, they started with their heaviest song, Look What The Cat Dragged In, accompanied by some fireworks. The crowd became crazy and each second I had less and less space, everybody was fiighting to reach the first row. |
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Brett Michaels came with a cowboy hat, a leather jacket and Poison’s Sweden Rock event T-shirt. |
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Rikki Rockett was giving the Rock beat to the band. We even had a nice drum solo. It seems that CC has become Bret’s best friend. He kept talking to him during the whole show. He plays almost every song with a different guitar. It’s well known that C.C. Deville has a huge guitar collection, and he brought a few ones to this show. He’s all energy, he runs all around the stage and still plays some great bluesy and Rock N’Roll solos. |
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Fireworks, great setlist, musicians full of energy… Anything wrong to say about their show? Well, yes. It was too short. The played most of their hits, 14 songs in total, but the concert lasted only one hour and 20 minutes. That’s very little time for a headlining band in a festival where even the 11 AM bands play for an hour! Ratt played longer than Poison! Previous days headliners Def Leppard and Judas Priest played for 2 hours... |
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Of course I wasn’t disappointed, I loved the show, but I had the impression that it was like “OK, we get on the stage, we do our job and we get out of here”. It’s been 18 years since the last time they played Europe, a more respectful band would have prepared something special instead of doing exactly or even less than what they do in the U.S. They didn't even play KISS' Rock n'Roll All Nite, the song with which they end most of their shows. |
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Still, I’m not going to complain, it was a dream come true. A friend of mine has seen them several times in the United States and he didn’t like Poison’s Sweden Rock show. To me it was the first time and it think it was great…but it could have been a lot better. |
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Well, that was Sweden Rock Festival 2008 to me. Next morning we took the train to Malmö where we spent the day while waiting for our flight back home from Copenhagen. By the way, we saw André Matos at the airport. Sweden Rock remains one of the best Rock/metal festivals regarding the bands and the organization. The only negative point is that Sweden is a very expensive country. Anyway, hope to come back someday and spend 4 days of madness again!
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Setlist Poison – Sweden Rock Festival - Sölvesborg, Sweden – June 7, 200801. Intro |
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Bret Michaels - Vocals, additional guitars C.C. Deville - Guitars Bobby Dall - Bass Rikky Rockett - Drums Links: Poison Website Poison My Space Poison on Metal Traveller's Flickr  |
| Concerts 2008 | Poison page | Another Band |
| < Previous: Avantasia | Sweden Rock 2008 | Concerts by year |