Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Artist: Triumph
Label: Frontiers Records
Release: 2012
Running time: 71:10
Rating: 4.5/5
It’s here! Do you still remember one of the biggest live attractions you can safely file under »arena rock« of the eighties, the Canadian rockers Triumph? After long, long, way too long years of silence, they got back together in 2008 for just one show, and played it at that year’s edition of the annual Sweden Rock Festival, on June 7, 2008. From that day to this, nothing has happened with Triumph that was big enough to shake the Earth’s axis, and Triumph really did keep their promise. They reunited for a single show and then retired again. This time probably for good.
At Frontiers Records, the Italian label that a few years ago bought up all the rights to reissue the entire Triumph discography in remastered editions with bonus tracks, they sensed that the time was right, since the value of a recording of Triumph’s one-of-a-kind Sweden Rock Festival show in 2008 keeps climbing. So they decided to release this live document as a DVD and a single live CD. Both come as separate formats, and also in a limited edition that puts both the DVD and the CD together.
I was handed only the audio disc, so this review covers only the sonic pulse of this spectacular show by the Canadian art rock veterans! The men who have worked as a trio since time immemorial, Rick Emmet (vocals, guitar), Mike Levine (bass, keyboards) and Gil Mooore (vocals, drums), arrived at Sweden Rock Festival as the standard trio, but with an extra stage helper and guitarist, Dave Dunlop.
Triumph got a good hour and ten minutes of live music at Sweden Rock Festival, and of course they crammed it full of their biggest hits. To mention just a few, they focused on the classics (Fight the Good Fight, Magic Power, Lay It On The Line) from their best-known albums, the ones that went gold or platinum ages ago, starting with »Progressions of Power«, »Allied Forces«, »Never Surrender« and »Thunder Seven«.
This document embodies the untamed attitude of a band that spits and machine-guns from the stage fully armed. No more, no less! It’s honestly incredible that a Triumph just woken from their slumber are capable of such a sudden reactivation of all the forces their musical stature and voice, their character and work, have to offer. That’s where you find the magic power and greatness that separates BANDS, like Triumph, from “bands” (the ones that always slip up in a sea of clichés). »Live At Sweden Rock« justifies all the hard-earned, hard-won reputation of this charismatic band, which has always been a synonym for flawless stage execution charged with the extraordinary energy of a unique rock n’ roll style that comes straight from the cradle of the band’s musical vision. From the opener When The Lights Go Down, which rides on the intro riff of the Judas Priest classic You’ve Got Another Thing Comin’, to the raw rock perversion of the bristling Rock N’ Roll Machine with the progressive evergreen Hocus Pocus by Dutch legends Focus woven in, the Triumph classics are generously soaked in solo escapades of Emmet’s guitar brilliance, which are in no short supply across this live album in its stretched-out improvised passages. »Live At Sweden Rock« also boasts flawless vocal execution from both Emmet and Moore. The vocal lines carry even more manliness and a slightly lower but thicker tone from both lead singers, which simply comes with the years of maturing, and which by no means lessens the impression of sheer voltage this document leaves every time you slide it into your CD player.
If Triumph really are bidding farewell to the rock n’ roll world as we know it in this light, it’s best to leave it that way. A final goodbye with a document like this is a magnificent act! This live document proves the trio’s incredible stage chemistry. Not for a second does it feel like the band just crawled out of years of hibernation and inactivity. It sounds like they’ve been tearing up stages the whole time. Unstoppable, like an untamed, raging river in a heavy storm that knows no rest .
Anyone who happened to catch the band on that historic day at Sweden Rock Festival has to have this live document at home. All Triumph fans, and all of you who appreciate this art rock band’s extraordinary body of work, absolutely must add this document to your collection of Triumph discs. That’s how the strongest (and in this regard, the greatest) bands approach their rock n’ roll business and mission. Always all or nothing. A one-of-a-kind show on a one-of-a-kind day. In the history of Triumph’s career and in the history of rock n’ roll. And so another rock n’ roll outfit has lain down to an honorable rest, one that filled stadiums in the eighties, especially on the North American continent, and that carries, across the pond, the pedigree of one of the great live rock attractions and key standard-bearers of the golden age of arena rock!
But for the document to earn five points out of five, this farewell release would need at least as much music again as what fits on the first disc.
Lineup
Rik Emmet – guitar, vocals
Mike Levine – bass, keyboards
Gil Moore – drums, vocals
GUEST MUSICIAN:
Dave Dunlop – guitar
Production
Triumph
Tracklist
1. When The Lights Go Down
2. Lay It On The Line
3. Allied Forces
4. Never Surrender
5. I Live For The Weekend
6. Blinding Light Show
7. Rocky Mountain Way
8. Magic Power
9. Rock N Roll Machine
10. Fight The Good Fight.
