Sadly for Swedish power metal band Dream Evil, they were for the most of their gig playing at the same time as Cathedral, and their excellent gig at the Rock stage was so good, I only made it over to Dream Evil at the Sweden stage for the end of the show, but when I did come over, I quickly saw the mistake of arriving late to this gig; all in front of the stage and way up the hill the crowd was massive and was really into the show.

This crowd put one of Niklas ‘Nick Night’ Isfeldt’s fears to shame, as he said the band had been a bit worried about playing so early at the festival; he figured everyone would be rolling around in their tents with hangovers. Well, it was the last day after all, so the fears were not completely without ground I suppose…
Well, if there were any hangovers present, they certainly didn’t show, and Dream Evil on their hand seemed to know exactly how to kick-start the last day of the festival as well. As luck would have it, the rain and wind subsided as soon as they got on stage, and the sun poked its head around as well! Not that this necessarily fits the music or theme of the band, but it was still a welcome surprise for us watching.

Dream Evil played a high energy set, filled with material from their career, and some of them even got their own sometimes nice, sometimes silly introduction by Nick Night; Fire! Battle! In Metal!, which he said had reached a staggering height of 39 views on YouTube (although it had at least a few more last time I checked), and towards the end he said they were running out of songs they knew and that they only had The Book Of Heavy Metal (March Of The Metallians) left. Afterwards he went on to contradict himself though, and said that the reason that they couldn’t play anymore for the now fired up and hungry audience was that they weren’t allowed to do so because of the time. Either way, the crowd found themselves most unwillingly letting go of the Swedes for this time.

I must admit, I have a serious problem with taking these guys seriously at times, but on the other hand, I’m not necessarily certain that this is the point of the band either. Lyrics like “I’m so fucking metal, and so is my wife” and “We strike while the iron is hot, not lukewarm” speak their clear language; this is about fun, and that it was on that early Saturday morning.

Setlist (incomplete):

Made Of Metal
Children Of The Night
Fire! Battle! In Metal!
The Chosen Ones
Chasing The Dragon
The Book Of Heavy Metal (March Of The Metallians)