200000_decibel

» 200.000 Decibel 2004

~Written by Thomas, September 2004
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2000 Decibel is the name of a yearly festival held in Swedish town Bengtsfors. Lennart Larsson is the man behind it all and this year it financially didn't work out. Terrible weather and tough competition left Lennart that was financially responsible having to pay up 200.000 sek. out of his own pocket.. And by the initiative of journalist Martin Carlsson 200.000 Decibel was born in order to help Lennart and to raise the money necessary so that 2000 Decibel can happen again next year as well. The benefit concert of 200.000 Decibel was held at Trädgårn in Gothenburg and everyone involved as arrangers, staff and not least the performing bands all did this for free.

(Due to technical difficulties, the pictures are few this time and not of the highest quality)

Thursday - September 02

Band: Lost Horizon

The warpainted guys in Lost Horizon got the unpleasant task of being the opening act this evening. All of the attendants had not showed up yet and the crowd was small but somewhat enthusiastic, as the band did a pretty good concert. The incredible voice from Daniel Heiman seemed to be in perfect order this evening as he hit all the spots rather well. Lost Horizon did ok but it felt like the concert really never started for real, the short set on 30 minutes was a bit to short for just a ordinary choice of songs.

It felt like when they really started to get going the concert came to an end and if they had thrown in some kind of surprise I guess that would have made up for the short time given. Although it was a great way to start this festivity as the appetite for more performances was awoken in me.

Setlist:
Heart Of Storm
Again Will The Fire Burn
Pure
Welcome Back
Sworn In The Metal Wind

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Band: Hypocrisy

Peter Tägtren, also known as the man behind Pain, took his band Hypocrisy to Gothenburg for the first time. Having only really heard their last album I came to realize that I must have been missing something, because this was really good. Only track I recognized was Eraser from the their latest effort The Arrival and that was the best song delivered from the band, mainly because it was the one I knew. I cant name the other songs but the band did great on stage and the crowd became more and more lively as their performance went on.

The older stuff they did sounded more aggressive and more evil if you like compared with the songs on their latest album, and it worked really well live with how tight Hypocrisy is as a band on stage. And with the last two tracks they did you can talk about real crowd pleasers. Covering the Swedish cult icon Eddie Meduza, Hypocrisy delivered Gasen I Botten and Mera Brännvin in a heavy metal 'n' roll fashion to the audience's delight. By this time the crowd was really getting warmed up before The Haunted as next band on the slot.

(Sorry, no setlist)

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Band: The Haunted

The Haunted now really got the crowd going not least with the energetic vocalist Peter Dolving leading them on. As everyone in the audience seemed to be enjoying this very much I guess my opinion will differ from the rest, because it just didn't get to me. The Haunted did probably everything right and their fans would probably say that this was great, but although their music ought to fall under my taste it doesn't.

Slayer replicas that comes a bit to close to grind-core and even though there wasn't anything wrong with the intensity from the band it wasn't for me. It is always a pleasure to watch a band on stage when they act with such certainty as The Haunted, it was actually nice to watch them and as they had some good moments that I really liked. It was definitely not a bad concert they did, it just wasn't for me.

(Sorry, no setlist)

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Band: In Flames

Now, this was one of the main reasons I was there. In Flames is always a great pleasure to watch even though it started out with a really bad sound. The sound that had been great all of the evening now was terrible, at one point the vocals was gone for a long time at the beginning of their concert, luckily this got fixed. In Flames has become one of the greatest live bands and even if this one wasn't their best one they still came out as the best band this evening. The band had some surprises up their sleeves and first one out was a cover of the song Blinded By Fear, originally done by another band from Gothenburg , At The Gates. And in the killer live track Behind Space guitarist Jesper Strömblad took on the drums as they had some guests with them. With Glenn Ljungström on guitar and Mikael Stanne (Dark Tranquillity) on vocals you had an early line-up of In Flames, and this was the highlight of the evening. Before the concert came to an end they played Cloud Connected as last track and that seemed to be the climax among many in the now really big crowd.

This was not the best performance I have seen with In Flames this year, but it was still really good and as I felt satisfied with the evening I left before it was Nifelheim's turn to take the stage and close this event. Since I'm no fan of Nifelheim I felt that there was no chance they was going to be able to top In Flames performance, not least with the highlight with Stanne on vocals..

(Sorry, no setlist)

The purpose was filled

In the end this was a nice evening, all of the bands I saw did good with their performances. Nothing extraordinary great but four nice concerts where The Haunted regardless if I liked or not did well and In Flames was the expected highlight.
In-between two of the concerts Lennart approached the stage and thanked everyone involved and said that the evening was a success and that 2000 Decibel will be back next year. And that was great news to hear, that the goal was achieved and it all hadn't been in vain.

Thomas, September 2004