The operative word for this year’s Sweden Rock Festival, for yours truly at least, was ‘dilemma’.
First of all, I was in a bit of one already as I was contemplating whether or not I should even go. I mean, could I afford it?
No, certainly not. Sweden Rock is, in spite of its close vicinity to my home, probably the most expensive festival I go to.
Then again, could I afford not to??
Definitely not! With a line-up promising so many great acts, some of which I had never seen and possibly wouldn’t get another chance at, there wasn’t much of a choice for me; away we went!

No sooner was this first dilemma past us, than the next one reared its ugly face in the curtains…
As I’ve mentioned, Sweden Rocks line-up of bands for this year was better, for me at least, than it had been for many years. My top-three for this year was without a doubt Guns N’ Roses, Danzig and Skyclad, the two former I had never seen before and the latter I had seen but once in a distant past. Apart from these, there were still many bands and artists who took my fancy – Death Angel, Johan Edlund (Tiamat) and Unisonic to name but a few…
Well, this doesn’t look like a problem you may say to yourself, and so far I would be hard pressed not to agree with you; the real trouble started when I saw the running order. No less than ten(!) clashes between bands I wished to watch could be counted; blast this diverse taste of mine! I say this because the festival management had actually made a very good job of not putting bands of similar styles at the same time.
To be honest, between all those clashes, there was but one where the bands were of a similar musical persuasion; that being Unisonic and Epica. A good example of the more commonly appearing differences would be the two-staged duet of Gary Moore and Behemoth…
Still, sacrifices would have to be made as you understand; some were quite clear-cut while others were dicier, if you pardon the pun. The choice between Danzig and Jorn was really no choice at all (sorry Jorn), whereas Johan Edlund’s acoustic show and Sabaton’s not so acoustic set was a much tougher cookie to swallow.
In the end, I was very happy with the choices I made, even though some shows were only seen half-in-half…

The weather this year seemed to have some dilemmas of its own; one minute it could be baking hot, just to change into grey skies and cold drops of rain in the next. Pretty Maids’ new hit-ballad Little Drops Of Heaven could easily have been the soundtrack for Sweden Rock Festival 2010.
Luckily, it never rained very hard (except during the Billy Idol show where the heaven’s opened!) so the ground didn’t have time get muddy in the least bit. The little droplets never got very annoying either; all you needed was a thick sweater, and one of the numerous rain-ponchos which were sold or handed out (depending on the quality) all over the place.
At one time the weather got a bit too much too quick for us, and although it could have ended very badly, luckily no one was hurt. What happened was, just seconds before the Unisonic gig was supposed to start at the Rock Stage, a sudden and strong gust of wind grabbed hold of the soundtower and pulled the roof nearly clean off! We were actually heading towards the stage when one of the beams hit the ground only a few metres away.
Hear I must again hand it to the festival management for doing a great job; in less than a minute there were guards all over moving people out of harm’s way and securing the area while the builders got to work on fixing the tower at once. It took some time to do so, but as soon as they were done the concert was good to go as if nothing had happened.
Not much information was given as to how, but somehow they even got the time-schedule back in order in just a few bands time!

As a side-effect to the many double bookings, there was also a lot of time where we didn’t necessarily have to run from one band to the next, but actually had time to socialize a bit as well.
This fit me really well, as Sweden Rock is the one festival which gathers both friends and family for me; more than once I ran into my brother and his family, we hung out and chilled with some friends in the trailer-park, we tried drinking the competition under the table (yes Revelationz-people, it is you who I am addressing here), and I even ran into a friend from my school-days! Where else than here at Sweden Rock could all this happen?
My only regret, and this is a small one, is that I didn’t have time to check out the market stalls and the Sweden Rock Shop, but on the plus-side I’m guessing my banker is happy, and that’s surely nothing to frown upon.

All in all, I must say that it was definitely the correct decision to visit Sweden’s largest rock festival again this year; I don’t feel there is any one particular thing to complain about, except possibly the fact that the festival is getting a bit pricey for my taste.
On the upside on the other hand we have, well, just about everything else. Things run extremely smoothly, and everything is looked after.
As for the music, my entire top-three delivered, as did many, many others. The first-price, in a tight competition, will still go to Cathedral, who managed to open the festivals last day, with all the hangovers it brings, baking heat, gloomy doom metal, and still rocked the house more than anyone else. Now that’s impressive!

If all goes well, we will be back for more in 2011, and I hope to run into some of you there!