I love Cathedral, but to be honest I wasn’t sure whether I should hold any high hopes for their show at Sweden Rock or not.
I remembered their show last year at Wacken, where they were playing early in the day for a tired and hung-over crowd, and it was the exact same situation here; last day of the festival, first band of the day...
The very small turnout for the show didn’t really help easy my anxieties either...

The first thing to happen was Lee Dorrian apologising for bringing the English weather with them (at this point the skies were grey and a light rain was gently dripping on us), after which they began playing some song from their latest album, The Guessing Game. It wasn’t bad, but since I hadn’t had time to check the album out, it failed to completely catch my attention.
After about three songs, I believe it was, North Berwick Witch Trials came on, and I and the rest of the crowd was quickly swept up in the immediate groove, and started banging and shouting out our joy.
From there on out, it was practically a hit-parade we were given, with only Cosmic Funeral and a long improvised (or so it sounded) instrumental part dragging the tempo a bit down, the latter almost to a drone-like standstill on Gary ‘Gaz’ Jennings’ guitar. These short intermissions of doom didn’t really bother me this time though, and soon the band found its way back to the up-tempo material in the also new song The Casket Chasers.

Dorrian showed an entertaining side in his trademark hangings and torture escapades with the microphone cord, as well as the mandatory “Burn” shout-marathon in Hopkins (Witchfinder General), and for the rest of the band; well, Leo Smee was looking cool up on the monitors where he placed himself from time to time, as did Brian Dixon behind his minimalistic yet effective drumkit and Jennings was grooving like nobody’s business.
All the way through, the crowd was very much involved in the show with headbanging and shouting out their appreciation, and as the sun came out about three songs in, the audience started to rapidly grow in numbers as well (without ever getting too crowded though).

As this was yet another double-booking for me, my plan was to see the start of Cathedral, and then head on over to Dream Evil, but in the end they had to do without me because Cathedral managed to grip me in such a way there was just no way I would ever leave before every little song had been played!
In a meagre total of three, this was still definitely the best Cathedral show I have seen, and more than that, I do believe it ended up being the best show for the entire festival as well!
What had been wrong at Wacken was completely rectified here; the setlist was phenomenal, and perfect for this type of setting!

Setlist (incomplete):

North Berwick Witch Trials
Utopian Blaster
Cosmic Funeral
Carnival Bizarre
Instrumental Piece
The Casket Chasers
Corpsecycle
Ride
Hopkins (Witchfinder General)