At first sight Bullet from Sweden simply oozed of NWOBHM. When I entered the concert hall of Vega this early spring evening, I might as well have walked through a time portal and ended up at one of Iron Maidens first gigs back in the day.
Their style was so genuine through and through I didn’t know just what to think at first. Was this a new band with a strong love for their metallic roots, or was it an old band which had gone unnoticed by me through the ages? On closer inspection of the youthful faces of the participants it was made quite clear to me however that it was the former.

Bullet was the first band this evening to support fellow Swedes Hammerfall, and they were also accompanied by Sabaton (triple Swede night it is).
As luck (or rather unluck) would have it, we ended up coming a bit late and Bullet began a bit before time, so they were halfway through their second song as we entered. And already at this time the audience was quite large, and they were happily nodding along to the songs.
The band however did not settle for just nodding, they were on fire tonight and they had every intention of bringing the crowd along for the ride. They were showing of every pose in the book with guitars behind the head and legs spread wider than anatomically healthy.
Dag ‘Hell’ Hofer (with windpipes UDO himself would envy, added with a strong hint of AC/DC to top it off) did an excellent job as frontman as he fired the audience up to sing along to lyrics like Bite The Bullet. And if the crowd forgot the words, help was soon to find as Hampus Klang (guitar), Adam Hector (bas) and Erik Almström (guitar) lifted their gear to the air and had the three words written on the back.

It all worked out well for the Swedes, and the crowd got more and more into it as the set went on; and even though they were the first of three bands there was still time for a couple of encore songs. Now that’s impressive!
All in all, an unexpected but good way to start the evening.