For the final act of the Friday In Flames had been chosen, and after a brilliant travel through the bands history presented by a P.O.V. film run on the big screens at either side of the stage where our protagonist fidgeted with an old radio, Anders Fridén walked humbly on in an old worn sweater and announced the band by saying:”Hello. We are called In Flames.”

Throughout the rest of the show, all that humility was gone with the wind however, and Fridén didn’t spill a minute of time to harass both the audience and other bands, both playing at the festival and others. The ones to get the biggest turns were probably Foreigner, Axl Rose and Twisted Sister.
And who can forget the kind words;”Can’t everyone clap to the same beat for once? That would be real nice…”
There was also a guy who had shown up sporting a pink wig; let’s just say that this was a mistake! It ended up with him having to ship it up to the stage where Fridén wore it for Only For The Weak.
Although, it should be mentioned that In Flames has never been a band to just hand out of the bully-bag, they can also take some hits themselves. In this spirit they had put together a video where Bert Karlsson (a prominent Swedish record company owner amongst other things) was putting the band down in every possible way for several minutes; a stunt which brought both laughter and applause from the audience.

On the setlist side of the show there were a couple of classic (old and newer) which I was happy to hear, some songs very much used in live sets, but sadly it was mostly filled out with songs I didn’t know well or sometimes at all…
A song that stood out especially for me was Pinball Map, as it is some time since I heard that one last, and Trigger and Only For The Weak are, if not unusual, then at least always a delight to hear.
In Flames also brought in a guest singer in the guise of Lisa Miskovsky for the song Dead End, a song Fridén claimed was the first time ever they played live.
Another guest musician was Niclas Engelin (Engel) who was filling in for Jesper Strömblad who was unable to attend due to personal circumstances. This is a duty Engelin has handled before as well, and he did the gig with pure professionalism. And he was harassed by Fridén for playing a white guitar (“Who plays a white guitar? Honestly?”)…

Performance ways this was your typical In Flames gig, delivered with loads of energy and humour; and of course no money were saved on effects either. The pyro show was innovative and amazing as always; they had gigantic flamethrowers placed on either side of the soundtower, and normal size ones placed on the stage, on the walls of the stage pointing inwards and even in the ceiling of the stage pointing down (!). As we neared the end several New Year’s rockets were fired into the summer night as a grand finale.
The large screens have already been mentioned, but inside the stage several light-walls were also placed, which displayed a host of different images throughout the show, including larger versions of the band-members and also a short film with the La Linea figure.

All accounted it was a good In Flames gig. The energy in the songs was definitely there, and the show didn’t lack anything, but as there were simply too many songs I didn’t know, or had a hard time remembering, it didn’t reach a top character. Also, I thought Fridén's speeches got to be a bit too much. It was fun in the start, but after a while I just hoped he would finish, and start playing some songs instead.

Setlist :

Delight And Angers
Touch Of Red
Trigger
Coerced Coexistence
Bottled
Pinball Map
Come Clarity
Dead End
The Hive
Cloud Connected
Disconnected
Only For The Weak
Embody The Invisible
Square Nothing
Alias
The Chosen Pessimist
The Mirror's Truth
The Quiet Place
Take This Life
My Sweet Shadow