The originally American (now they have members from all over the place) heavy metalband Warrior Soul was the first band for us here at Metalmoments for Sweden Rock’s 2010 festival.

They were set to play in the new Rockklassiker tältet (Rockclassics tent), and as such they were playing an exclusive acoustic show.
Admittedly, I was not very familiar with Warrior Soul’s work from the past, and really only knew one song well, The Losers, which I of course was hoping to hear tonight. Following this, I can’t say my expectations for the concert were very high, though I did go in there with as open a mind as possible.

Counting the people surrounding me while we awaited the bands appearance, my guess was that not many others knew the band either; ok, the tent was small, but there can’t have been more than 15-20 people standing around!
As soon as the band came on however, something happened, I don’t know what. All of a sudden I was pressed hard up against the fence, and the small gathering of people had almost by the snap of a finger transformed into a lively, vivacious and sweaty mass of bodies pushing hard to get their spot in the front-seat for the concert.
Not that I can blame them though; Kory Clarke (vocals) led his new troops consisting of Rille Lundell (guitar), Janne Jarvis (bas) and Freddie Cocker (drums (all of these men are collected from the Swedish glam/sleaze band Hate Gallery)) into a well-placed assault on all of our rock senses.

Technically, the band suffered some severe sound issues with hard feedback in the speakers in the beginning of the show, and although much alleviated it did stay as a small annoyance throughout the entire gig.
What this (in reality very, very small) annoyance did to bring the show down, the band themselves provided energy and nerve in abundance to weigh up for!
Although my hopes, as mentioned, had not been too high, I must confess myself completely taken aback with the sheer force that constitutes Warrior Soul. The acoustic sound, completed by Clarke’s hoarse whiskey vocal was enough to send shivers down my spine for the entire show, and not once did I even come near to feeling the boredom I had so foolishly been apprehensive of prior to the gig.

Warrior Soul were supposed to play for 30 minutes for us, but as they were the last band of the day on the stage, Clarke (after consulting his band-mates between each song played) ended up staying for an entire hour during which they gave us songs both old and new; straight from their debut Last Decade Dead Century up till, and including, their comeback Destroy The War Machine (first released as Chinese Democracy).
Last song of the night was Charlie’s Out Of Prison from the aforementioned debut, and after it had finished, and the band had long since left the stage after bows and greets, the long and loud shouts for an encore stayed on; a true testimony to how the band ad managed to touch our hearts for a moment in the calm of the Swedish summer night...

In the end, The Losers, which I was so looking forward to, was never played; but how can I complain about missing out on a single song, when instead I was handed such a complete and near perfect show such as this?

Setlist (incomplete):

Opium Hotel
Pigs
Love Destruction
Downtown
Let’s Get Wasted
Lullaby
Charlie’s Out Of Prison