As Volbeat played the Rock Stage, the second largest stage at Sweden Rock Festival, they were able to showcase the stylish scenery they have had made to match the Guitar Gangsters & Cadillac Blood album and storyline. My personal favourite here are the painted speakers with the chrome titles on them.

As they usually do it, the concert was preceded by a steel-guitar intro, after which Volbeat took the stage with the title track of the aforementioned album.
Now, it’s no secret how big Volbeat are in Denmark, their homeland, but also here in Sweden their support was outstanding. Michael Poulsen remarked on this, saying Swedes seemed to be fans of rock’n’roll as well which indicates that they are a very intelligent nation.
Even though this could be seen as kissing ass, at least if you were not there to hear the delivery, Poulsen had the audience in the palm of his hand for the entire show, and both he and his band-mates were extremely lit up for the show. Especially Anders Kjølholm, bass, impressed with his presence and intensity; it has seemed to me he has often taken more of a backseat approach to live shows, but today he was out on the edge of the stage and had a great connection with the audience.

An obvious hit with the crowd was Radio Girl, as a gigantic party started when this song was played. Another good response was given to the hit-single The Garden’s Tale, before which Poulsen tried to convince the Swedish audience to sing the Danish parts of the lyrics for him; luckily they were helped along by guitarist Thomas Bredahl.
Surprisingly, their latest hit-single Maybellene In Hofteholder was left out of the set; however a new song was presented to us. This was, for the time being, logically called New Song.

No Volbeat concert would be complete without some guest appearances.
The ever-present Christian handled the acoustic guitar, as he always does, and Rasmus came in and took over Poulsen’s guitar for I Only Wanna Be With You.
As you can figure out after having read this far, Johan Olsen (Magtens Korridorer) was not present at the festival, but Pernille Rosendahl (The Storm, ex-Swan Lee) had taken time out of her schedule to lay down her lyrics in Mary Ann’s Place.

After this excellent display of showmanship was over, the band took a bow and proceeded with emptying their stock of plectrums and drumsticks over the audience before leaving the stage with a promise of coming down to have a drink with us later on.

Setlist:

Guitar Gangsters & Cadillac Blood
Another Day, Another Way
Radio Girl
Sad Man’s Tongue
Mr. And Mrs. Ness
Pool Of Booze, Booze, Booza
Mary Ann’s Place
(new song)
The Human Instrument
The Garden’s Tale
A Broken Man And The Dawn
Still Counting
Caroline #1
We
I Only Wanna Be With You (Dusty Springfield cover)