Im a huge fan of the sleaze rock scene that has errupted out of sweden, and it was my pleasure to finally have the chance to go see two of swedens finest bands, Crazy lixx and Hardcore Supestar on the mentally damaged world tour.

The venue wasnt exactly huge but it was nice, certainly not cramped and the main bands had plenty of room onstage. Naturally, i was at the front, right by the stage awaiting the bands to come on. First up was UK band “High Society” sporting a glam punk type image and sound, it was hard to judge the bands music quality as the PA set up frankly was appauling for them. Judging off there stage presence they were a high adrenaline band, certainly a representation of there youth. One issue i did have was the frontman, his “onstage persona” you could call it was very irritating and not cool at all, i also suggest a better belt… i didnt enjoy his arsecrack in my face all the time. A positive note is that the bands lead guitarist played some awesome guitar work and i was impressed by his mix of technicality and aggression, i have high hopes for his talent.

Next up was what i had been waiting for, Crazy Lixx. Sporting an incredibily cool image, and improved sound set up, they opened with “Hell or High Water” getting the crowd into there show right from the start. The band through the show were very tight and put on a great show, lead singer Dirtchild Danny didnt sing a bum note all night, he was pretty much as good as the album recording and was also a great frontman!!! Guitarist Vik Zeno was awesome, whilst playing some extremely great guitar work youd expect to see at a whitesnake concert, he also moved around alot doing all sorts of crazy dance moves and pulling a variety of amusing guitar faces, id also like to add that the band were very good at providing backing vocals. A Highlight for me was Vic Zeno diving on me and my friend during “Death Row” and performing a guitar solo on top of us. Crazy lixx performed most of there album and played an awesome show. The crowd responded well to them and i can only wish them the best of luck for future success because this band deserves it.

Now the crowd was ready to rock, without too long a wait, headline act Hardcore Superstar took the stage opening with “Need No Company”, singer Jocke Berg performed some awesome screams whilst commanding the crowd and constantly pushing them to be louder and wilder. After the song the band welcomed us and said they were proud to be playing to the city where the legendary Black Sabbath hailed from, quite amusingly (now ex) guitarist silver mistook the area to also be the hometown of Def Leppard, the crowd found this amusing and many shouted sheffield in correction to him, Silver and the band seemed to also find this amusing. The show was very long and i think the band really enjoyed playing for Birmingham as the band never tired and even played 3 songs for the encore!! These were “Kick On The Upperclass” “Liberation” and the classic “We Dont Celebrate Sundays”. The band was very tight and appeared to be enjoying themselves, i must say if i hadnt of read about Silver’s reasons for leaving i wouldnt have been able to tell. As he truly seemed to be enjoying it alot and giving the performance 100% effort.

A Highlight for me was Jocke Berg swinging and smashing his mic stand off the floor and then pulling off an awesome scream.

The band performed a brilliant live set and jocke never seemed to tire and his voice was great all the way through, the band then came down and shook fans on the front rows hands, Bass player Martin shook mine and i said thank you to him and he lent over to me and said “no, sincerely, thank YOU” which was very nice of him.

Both Crazy Lixx and Hardcore Superstar performed great shows, i cant say one was better than the other. Top live acts!

Guitarist Thomas Silver you will be missed, thank you for your contribution to the great creation that is rock n roll.

/Mrlee

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 26th, 2008 at 8:34 pm and is filed under HCSS. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.