The mighty power metal made a stronghold of The Rock this night, and as one of the troops guarding Stratovarius we saw Swedish Dream Evil grabbing their axes, and blasting us with a sonic assault.

The crowd was already considerably large for The Rock, but seemed rather relaxed except for when there was some clapping/shouting to be done.
Inventor and guitarist Fredrik ‘Ritchie Rainbow’ Nordström still did the most of the situation, by starting a sing-along for the Made Of Metal chant and later organized (well, yelled out) a shouting contest with a band-shirt as the first prize.
The rest of the band-members clearly seemed to enjoy themselves as well. Maybe it was because they were back in Scandinavia again, maybe they just are very positive on stage; I could say since I don’t know them well enough, but they certainly seemed to make an impression on the gathered audience.

The tightness of the group missed out on some parts though; Nordström’s guitar failed during Heavy Metal In The Night, and as he was left naked (figuratively speaking) while it was being fixed, he grabbed the chance to entertain us with some hilarious dance-moves.
Also, at several points during the show singer Niklas ‘Nick Night’ Isfeldt forgot where in the set they were, and what they were supposed to do; here Nordström again proved a great help and saved the band face by quickly moving on to the next part of the agenda.

Still, even with this in mind, I couldn’t ignore the effect the band had on the audience, who seemed very much taken with the performance, and gladly stamped the floor and threw their fists to the sky when opportunity arose. As Isfeldt at several times also held the mic out, both to the entire hall and also to single individuals in the front-line (did he also forget the lyrics?), we all got a chance test our voices with the most sing-along friendly metal genre around. A definite plus in many people’s book.
During Bang Your Head Dream Evil enlisted the help of two of the members of the evening’s first band, Tracedawn, since according to Isfeldt, they themselves were too old and short-haired to do the song any justice. Again, something of a plus, so the band wasn’t short on ideas on how to entertain, that’s for sure.

I myself was not a hundred percent convinced, but still enjoyed myself during the concert even though I at times thought it felt a bit generic.
The highlights for me were definitely the good sound (even though bassist Peter ‘Pete Pain’ Stålfors later commented that they had had some problems with a bass amp from the middle of the set) and the cowbell used in The Book Of Heavy Metal (March Of The Metallians). More cowbell in today’s metal!

Setlist:

Immortal
In The Night
Made Of Metal
Crusaders’ Anthem
Heavy Metal In The Night
Bang Your Head
In The Fires Of The Sun
The Chosen Ones
The Book Of Heavy Metal (March Of The Metallians)