It felt like forever since last time I saw Freedom Call live, so them playing in itself was fine news to me, and the fact that they were warming up for Gamma Ray only made the whole thing that much sweeter.

Compared to my last couple of visits to KB (or Kulturbolaget as the full name goes), there were a lot of people who had come out to show their love even for the first band of the evening, and love they showed as almost all who had come were standing in front of the stage and rocking along to the powerful hymns created by one of Germany’s famous power metal acts.
Freedom Call won my heart by opening with We Are One from their debut album Stairway To Fairyland, but through the evening they would play several more classic tunes from their by now extensive back catalogue, as well as new ones from their latest effort Legend Of The Shadowking of course. All of these excited the crowd, and had us singing along at the top of our lungs.

Freedom Call has during its 12 years of existence had several line-up changes where the core of Chris Bay and Dan Zimmermann has always been the one intact point around which the others revolved.
This era has now come to an end I realized, as the band went on stage here in Malmö, as drummer Zimmermann was nowhere to be found. Instead, a man called Klaus Sperling (Sinner, ex-Primal Fear among others) handled the skins, as Bay (now only remaining original member) headed the band into battle with Lars Rettkowitz (guitar) and Samy Saemann (bas) at his side.
They all held the power metal flag high with their good spirits combined with the bands extremely sing-along friendly tunes, and there is no doubt in my mind everyone present got their share of the fun.
Chris Bay asked us to behave as though it was Saturday (meaning party like there was no tomorrow) even though it was only Thursday evening, but in all honesty it felt a bit redundant as already from the start the mood was high. In United Alliance the aforementioned sing-along and clapping reached the roof and carried right over into Thunder God, and when we then reached Tears Of Babylon both band and audience alike began jumping up and down to the beat! This was pretty much the style for the entire show; smiling faces and joy-spreading metal all the way.

Freedom Call played a highly enjoyable gig, if you hadn’t gathered as much already, and lined us perfectly up for the main event of the night; Gamma Ray.
I only hope it will not be as long a time again before I see them pop by for a visit.

Setlist:

We Are One
United Alliance
Thunder God
Tears Of Babylon
Hunting High And Low
Metal Invasion
Mr. Evil
Out Of The Ruins
Far Away
Warriors
Land Of Light
Freedom Call