STRYPER
Forum - Vauréal, near Paris, France
June 22 2011

Tonight, there was a mass!

The church was the Forum, in the city of Vauréal, the priest was named Michael Sweet, and the order was called Stryper!

It was great surprise that this band was finally playing in France!
Since they reunited, they've toured Europe quite a few times, but always skipping France.

It was in june 1987 the last time Stryper played in France... It was at a venue called La Locomotive, only 24 years earlier...

Tonight it was their second show in France of their whole career. Let's call it The Second Coming.

Well, this was my firt Stryper concert and I didn't really knew what to expect. But I had good vibes from some of my friends who had seen them before... and they were right!

To be honest, I wasn't expecting such a good concert tonight, it exceeded all my expectations!

Like for most bands that started in the 80's, the spandex were exchanged for jeans or leather pants... but the colour codes remain: their clothes, their guitars, the bass and even the setlists were all yellow and black!

Michael Sweet asked if anyone had seen Stryper before and a few hands were raised. But then he asked who's never seen Stryper before and almost everyone put a hand in the air!

Michael admitted that 25 years (24 actually, but he said 25) without coming to France was so long, and said that the next wouldn't take that long. We hope so!

There were not many signs on stage showing Stryper as a Christian band. They wear a Cross necklace and drink water instead of beer, but they're not the only band to do so.

Sometimes they give Bibles to the audience, but they didn't gave any tonight.

Stryper came to rock tonight! Some of their albums and songs sound like Glam Rock, but on stage they really have a heavy sound and there's no doubt that they're not Glam, they are a Heavy Metal band!

Drummer Robert Sweet hitted hard his drum and headbanged during the whole show.
Guitar Player Oz Fox is also very communicative.
Only bass player Tim Gaines is more discrete, but all four musicians seemed to enjoy the show and being back (almost) in Paris.

One of the best moments was the song Loud'n'Clear.
They stopped the song twice because we were not singing as loud as they expected!
This put the audience in the mood and everyone tried to sing louder and louder.

The band played an intense but quite short set. There were 15 songs, but I've seen reviews where they played longer.

Two songs from the album The Covering were played.
One was Breaking the Law from another Priest, named Judas, who had played in Paris two days earlier.
The second was a very good version of Heaven & Hell from Black Sabbath, a tribute to Ronnie James Dio.
Oz Fox used another guitar with a deeper sound for this song, while Michael Sweet didn't play and concentrated on lead vocals.

The last song was the classic Soldiers Under Command, started A Cappella by Michael Sweet.

After the song, it wasn't over... it was time to thank the audience... and to thank the Lord.

All musicians statnded still looking down and in meditation as Michael Sweet said a prayer and blessed the audience. So the mass was over.

Tonight's show was quite short, but it was a high quality concert.
I hope there will be a next time, before 25 years!
Amen Brothers!

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Setlist Stryper – Forum – Vauréal, near Paris, France – June 22 2011

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