Location: Trezzo sull’Adda (Milan) / Live Club / Italy
Date: Saturday, 02.05.2014
Day two of Frontiers Rock Festival brought rain! Right from the morning and into the late morning, which our whole crew spent wandering around a gigantic shopping mall a few kilometers outside Trezzo Sull’Adda. In an even smaller town. Called Basiano. The first target was of course Mediamarkt and its discounted CDs, and of course we didn’t leave empty-handed. With a bag of great music bought at €4.99 a pop, we hit a discount store for some cheap bottles of Paulaner wheat beer, and thus well stocked, we headed for the venue.
Besides a great lineup, the first day of the festival also delighted us with outstanding organization. Everything ran like clockwork. Bands went on at exactly the times they were supposed to. So no complaints about the organization. If anything, praise. And so we staggered up to the hall entrance a little before three in the afternoon! And at exactly three, the Swedes Adrenaline Rush took the stage. The band signed with Frontiers Records at the end of January this year, and has already released a first single, Changes, which will of course be included on the upcoming debut album. Given the gloomy weather, the view of the stage offered plenty of reasons to cheer up. At the center of attention stood a hot, flirty little sweetheart by the name of Tave Wannig! She wielded the mic with skill and ran around the stage like she owned it. Before joining Adrenaline Rush, the singer was half of the teen-pop duo Peaches, but in Adrenaline Rush there’s of course no room for pop. The lineup is rounded out by Ludvig Turner (lead guitar), Alexander Hagman (rhythm guitar), Soufian Ma’Aoui (bass) and Marcus Johansson (drums). The band delivered exemplary tightness and cohesion. Musically, Adrenaline Rush don’t bring anything new to the table, but you can definitely feel the Scandinavian school in how they approach melodic rock. On one hand you hear the influence of older Scandinavian rock acts like Treat, Dalton, Renegade and 220 Volt, while on the other they add a pinch of sleazy naughtiness that should perk up the ears of Crazzy Lixx or Hardcore Superstar fans. The band will release their studio debut this summer, produced under the baton of the outstanding Erik Martensson (W.E.T., Eclipse). Let’s be surprised.
What followed was no less sweet. The next act was also fronted by a sweet girl. The Estonian Lennaa Kuurmaa, who is now trying her hand in the melodic rock band Moon Land. Behind it, of course, stands the A&R staff at Frontiers Records and the label’s attempt to serve the crowd a fresh, hot, crispy bun and squeeze a few extra coins out of their pockets. The songs, for instance, were written by Alessandro Del Vecchio, and they sent them to Lenna to try her vocals on them. It evidently worked, and both sides were happy. Lenaa Kuurmaa has quite a bit of mileage under her belt. You may know her from the female pop trio Vanilla Ninja, who represented Estonia at Eurovision twice. Both times with little success, but the girls had their breakthrough in 2005, when they represented Switzerland at Eurovision with the song Cool Vibes. At that point they were still leading halfway through the voting ahead of all the participating countries, but in the end they finished with an excellent eighth place. Lenna was backed on stage by a quartet on guitar, bass, drums and keys. In a good half hour the band presented songs from the upcoming debut, due out at the end of this year, including Open Your Heart, Heaven Is Close To You and Live And Let Go. You can tell the band is still in its infancy and that for Lenna everything is only just getting started. It was played correctly, tidily, and tightly enough, but, just like with Adrenaline Rush before, Lenna outshone everything with her talents and charms as an excellent vocalist and a stage presence who knows how to swing her heels in a way that wins you over fast! The girl lists The Beatles and Queen as her role models, and she likes listening to Heart. You couldn’t miss the influence of the latter in the material her new band Moon Land performed.
Just last summer, three seasoned musicians joined forces under the name L.R.S. Singer Tommy La Verdi (21 Guns), Josh Ramos (Hardline, The Storm) and Michael Shotton (Von Groove). The project’s studio debut, titled “Down To The Core,” came out this March, under the watchful production guidance of Frontiers Records’ “jack of all trades” Alessandro Del Vecchio, who also doubled as keyboardist on stage during the set. A logical choice, since he knows Josh Ramos well enough. The two both make up part of today’s Hardline lineup. You could feel this was the trio’s very first gig together. This time it was the musicians’ wealth of experience and mileage that carried them, and the band filled out the set with 21 Guns’ Knee Deep (right at the tail end of the set), the Von Groove hit Once Is Not Enough, with drummer Michael Shotton taking over vocals (as on the original), and The Storm classic I’ve Got a Lot to Learn About Love. All three were stitched together into a medley. The songs from the album “Down To The Core,” like the title track, plus Our Love To Stay, Living 4 A Dream and Universal City (interestingly, the single Almost Over You dropped out of the set), warmed the hearts of anyone devoted to melodic rock. Especially Journey fans. The crowd enjoyed it no less than Moon Land and Adrenaline Rush before, and all eyes usually settled on the incredible guitar acrobatics of Josh Ramos, who had already shown the night before during Hardline’s set that he’d studied Neal Schon down to the last detail. Barefoot La Verdi lost the thread a few times during the show, but that’s all down to a long absence from the stage. La Verdi of course thanked the heads of Frontiers Records profusely during the gig for getting him back on stage and in the company of the other two outstanding musical partners. A set without standout moments, but one that also counted as exclusive, since it’s an open question whether this project will ever get out on any kind of tour. A similar story, then, to Three Lions, who played the festival the day before.
The second day of the festival jumped to a higher level of quality in one go with the set from the outstanding Swedish melodic rock revivalists Eclipse, who, with two albums under their belt, were, alongside Denmark’s Pretty Maids, really the toughest band of the festival’s second day. The key difference between Eclipse and the other three acts who went on before them is that Eclipse are a real band, one that breathes and grows as a unit within its polished, clear musical vision, and has been doing so a bit longer. The reins are held by the outstanding vocalist, multi-instrumentalist, producer and songwriter Erik Martensson, who, together with his buddy, guitarist Magnus Henriksson, had already played the first day of the festival with W.E.T. In a three-quarter-hour set, the quartet laid out a superb show built from the only two albums Eclipse had released up to that day, with an emphasis on the current “Bleed And Scream” (2012). A song like Wake Me Up, for example, is composed just about perfectly and has already become a fan favorite and evergreen among melodic rock followers. A good part of the hall sang the lyrics from memory during it. The choruses at the very least. Eclipse are an incredibly infectious band! Martensson is a magnet. An outstanding vocalist, stage performer, actor. And the quintet plays with bravura. Henriksson also stunned with a few solo acrobatics! The band closed the set with Breaking My Heart Again and raised the quality bar of the festival day to a higher level. For many in the hall, Eclipse were one of the finest highlights of the festival’s second day. They put on such a powerful show that, quality-wise, it stuck out for many at the venue above the sets of all the other acts that day. Even above the main draw of the second day, the Americans Stryper!
Red Dragon Cartel is the band that, after a 15-year break, brought back to the stage one of the most talented and accomplished hard rock guitarists of the eighties, Jake E. Lee. For vocals, Lee picked the drummer of Canada’s Harem Scarem, Darren J. Smith, who handled his new role with great distinction. The lineup was rounded out by bassist Ronnie Mancuso and drummer Jonas Fairley. The “guitar nightingale” who etched himself into the hearts of heavy metal and hard rock fans with Badlands and especially as Ozzy Osbourne’s lead guitarist on the albums “Bark At The Moon” and “The Ultimate Sin,” kicked off his show in grand style. Straight in with a right hook and Ozzy’s song The Ultimate Sin. It blew the roof off the hall. The crowd went wild and the expensive beer (4 dl for €5.00) was flying in every direction across the hall. Jake E. Lee was in great spirits. He fired and flashed relentless bursts of improvisational acrobatics from his guitar, his own trademark. This is a unique guitarist with a recognizable style. Jake E. Lee decided to devote a more substantial chunk of the set’s running time to some Badlands classics that have grown especially close to his heart over the years. So we got High Wire, Shine On, In a Dream, Rumblin’ Train and Sun Red Sun . In between, the crew mixed in songs from the self-titled studio debut, namely Deciever, War Machine, Feeder and Shout it Out. For the big finale, Jake E. Lee and the crew came back for an encore and cut loose with Ozzy’s Bark At The Moon, making the thoroughly “oiled” crowd in the hall deliriously happy! A bomb of a gig! If Red Dragon Cartel play anywhere near you, do yourself a favor and go see them. They’ll hit you with a real jolt of energy! And Jake E. Lee is hungry and thirsty for blood and gigs. His festival show proved it! Red Dragon Cartel will surely put out another album or two in the future! Given the focus they’ve shown, almost certainly.
Pretty Maids were the only ones that day to arrive in their “nightliner.” Not because of this festival, since the trip from Horsens, Denmark would have cost them too much, but they dropped by the festival more or less in passing. During their headlining tour, on which they’re still presenting their current studio album “Motherland” as well as the just-released album of re-recorded classics and four brand-new songs, “Louder Than Ever.” Pretty Maids have been touring regularly in recent years. Just last fall they were out on an extensive tour of the old continent with Pink Cream 69 and Bonfire, and they already have a new tour announced for this May.
Pretty Maids have a reputation as one of the most experienced live bands, and also one of the strongest when it comes to delivering their repertoire. In sheer seasoning, they had no equal among that day’s performers. The band, formed back in 1981, took up more room on stage than the bands before them. The drums stood well elevated on a special riser, and in the background a giant banner with the cover of the current studio album “Motherland” and of course the band’s logo sprawled across the stage. As expected, Pretty Maids gave it their all this evening too. They always play full throttle. No brakes. Right from the start, singer Ronnie Atkins, with his proven rock-solid focus and charismatic magnetism, got the hall on its feet as the new Mother Of All Lies came on, followed by I See Ghosts, plus the “Pandemonium” track Final Day of Innocence, back in the set list again. Next to the high-spirited Atkins, bassist Rene Shades happily ran around, now toward keyboardist Morten Sandager, now toward guitarist Ken Hammer, while the “drum animal” Alan Tschikaja dealt out merciless slaps to the drumheads and also handed out a heap of drumsticks to the crowd. The brand-new My Soul To Take also works great, drawing a bit on Little Drops Of Heaven – which was of course played in the second half of the show – as did the equally brand-new Nuclear Boomerang a little later, which exposed some vocal wear in Ronnie’s voice, which you just have to accept, since the voice is the only organic instrument. And it can’t be fully replaced. The band also tackled Phil Lynott’s Please Don’t Leave Me, and squeezed the last atoms of strength out of the crowd with the expected closing finale of iron-clad repertoire staples Red Hot And Heavy, Future World and Back To Back.
The one slight surprise was that Pretty Maids didn’t include any of the newly recorded classics from the album “Louder Than Ever,” which they hadn’t played live for quite some time. But maybe we’ll hear them on 15.05.2014, when the band plays in Velden in Carinthia at the club Bluesiana Rock Cafe. There, Pretty Maids will play a two-hour show. Pretty Maids put on one of the most powerful stage performances of the day, so Stryper had a distinctly tough task ahead of them!
Gigs by the “white,” or in other words “Christian rockers” Stryper aren’t exactly an everyday thing in Europe. Although the band put out a new studio album, “No More Hell To Pay,” last November, it hasn’t yet had a chance to present it properly in Europe. The first real opportunity thus came at Frontiers Rock Festival. Stryper do have a few more confirmed European festival appearances this summer, including Bang Your Head!! in Balingen, Germany, but still, a fact is a fact. Stryper don’t play Europe much, so they were definitely seen as a special attraction of the festival. Right on arrival, Michael Sweet tossed a few “Stryper Bibles” into the crowd as the band hit the stage to the taped intro Battle Hymn of the Republic. Sing Along Song, with its pompous infectiousness, immediately woke up the audience, who jumped right in singing. The ultimate leader and boss of the band, singer and guitarist Michael Sweet, is holding up well vocally. Despite that, he saved some energy in places and steered clear of the extremely high notes he’s still capable of hitting (well, the latest studio album proves that at least), otherwise he wouldn’t have sung a few years ago as one of the lead vocalists of the legendary Boston. Stryper built the set from their hits, devoted part of the show to presenting the new studio album “No More Hell To Pay” (just three songs), and for a while even to the covers album “The Covering” (2011), from which they played the Judas Priest “evergreen” Breaking The Law and the Kiss standard Shout It Out Loud.
A Stryper gig is a special kind of experience. Michael Sweet’s preacher ritual is woven right into it. In the last part of the show came the ballad Honestly. Even before it, he “diligently” talked and talked. No big deal. It’s a classic, a standard. Expected stuff. But Sweet sang this song’s ballad section completely alone on stage, with taped keyboards (the band used backing-vocal tracks throughout the gig), which somewhat killed the charge and voltage of the show. Before the part where the whole band joins in, he vanished from the stage for a moment, the stage went completely dark, and then the band played the song to the end. The longer speeches between songs might also have mildly irritated some, especially anyone who came for an uncompromising dose of rock ‘n’ roll partying. You have to take that as part of the deal. Stryper are simply a special band. Quite a hefty bundle of Stryper Bibles got handed out, but we came mainly for the music, and the band definitely made up for it with excellent riff structures that rang out in All For One, The Way and, as expected, at the tail end of the regular set in Soldiers Under Command. The encore was expected too. What wasn’t expected was just how short it was. A taped intro (Abyss), then straight into To Hell With The Devil and goodbye.
Otherwise the crew comes across as tight, in sync, superbly well-rehearsed. The experience is there. And the maturity that comes with the years, no less., Oz Fox and Michael Sweet complement each other beautifully in the solos, as well as in the three-part harmonies, while Michael’s beastly brother Robert Sweet was of course once again facing away from the audience, which has been the band’s standard since time immemorial, and yet it raises quite a few eyebrows every single time. Few drummers make the decision not to face the crowd with their drums during a gig. Maybe it was missing the cherry on top, one more scorching Stryper shrapnel blast, to make the measure full, but otherwise no complaints. The band plays great and that’s what counts. Definitely a must for all true fans of the band. Stryper lived up to their headliner billing, despite the stellar Pretty Maids and Eclipse ahead of them, who for many were the highlight of the second day’s festival sets.
Fulfilled from soaking up new live experiences, we headed for the car. The rain had stopped. But the devil wouldn’t leave us alone! Jernej ran into Brad Gillis (Night Ranger) in the hall! Apparently Night Ranger arrived in Trezzo sull’Adda a day before their gig! We turned back toward the hall. First we ran into guitarist Joel Hoekstra, who kindly exchanged a few words and, at the request of those present, posed for a few cameras, followed by a meeting with the original, founding member of Night Ranger, guitarist Brad Gillis, who was outside the hall taking on a crowd of fired-up fans swarming around him like flies. A beautiful way to cap off the festival day and a prelude to the closing third day!
author: Aleš Podbrežnik
photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
ADRENALINE RUSH:
1. Black N Blue
2. Change
3. Mellansnack
4. No No No
5. mellansnack
6. When We’re Gone
7. Want It All
8. Generation Left Behind
9. Oh Yeah!
10. Hit You Like A Rock
11. Long Live Rock ‘n’ Roll (Rainbow)
L.R.S.:
1. Our Love to Stay
2. Livin 4 a Dream
3. Down to the Core
4. Universal Cry
5. I’ve Got a Lot to Learn About Love (The Storm)
6. Once Is Not Enough (Von Groove)
7. Knee Deep (21 Guns)
ECLIPSE:
1. Wylde One
2. Wake Me Up
3. Battlegrounds
4. A Bitter Taste
5. Bleed & Scream
6. Under the Gun
7. S.O.S.
8. About to Break
9. Breaking My Heart Again
RED DRAGON CARTEL:
1. The Ultimate Sin (Ozzy Osbourne)
2. Deceived
3. War Machine
4. High Wire (Badlands)
5. Shine On (Badlands)
6. Shout It Out
7. In a Dream (Badlands)
8. Rumblin’ Train (Badlands)
9. Sun Red Sun (Badlands)
10. Feeder
—encore—
11. Bark at the Moon (Ozzy Osbourne)
PRETTY MAIDS:
1. Mother of All Lies
2. I See Ghosts
3. Final Day of Innocence
4. My Soul to Take
5. Yellow Rain
6. Rodeo
7. Please Don’t Leave Me (Phil Lynnot)
8. Another Brick in the Wall Part 2 (Pink Floyd)
9. I.N.V.U.
10. Nuclear Boomerang
11. Little Drops of Heaven
12. Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi (Carmina Burana)
13. Back to Back
14. Red, Hot and Heavy
—encore—
15. Future World
16. Outro (Sit on My Face – Monty Python)
STRYPER:
1. Intro (Battle Hymn of the Republic)
2. Sing-Along Song
3. Loud ‘N’ Clear
4. Reach Out
5. Calling on You
6. Free
7. More Than a Man
8. Legacy
9. No More Hell to Pay
10. Marching Into Battle
11. Breaking the Law (Judas Priest)
12. Shout It Out Loud (KISS)
13. All for One
14. Honestly
15. The Way
16. Soldiers Under Command
—encore—
17. Intro (Abyss)
18. To Hell With the Devil
