Rockfest Metal arranges. Tickster sells the tickets. Sparbanken Skåne Arena in Lund is the place. March 31, 2023, is the date. Meshuggah (Umeå, SE) is the announced headline act. Supergroup The Halo Effect (Gothenburg, SE), Orbit Culture (Eksjö, SE) and Scar Symmetry (Avesta, SE) supports. It’s the perfect arrangement. It’s four bands of highest quality. The arena is great and it’s a total metal evening. The setting up of the four bands with not more than half an hour in between goes super smoothly. This is all an impressive arrangement and the professional performance of the bands says it all. The metal evening set up of the four bands in this tour format is now over and here a tribute is paid to the world class metal, which was presented.
Scar Symmetry
Being a first time visitor at the Sparbanken Skåne Arena with a careless planning of arriving on time sadly made me miss the first quarter of Scar Symmetry’s opening act of this metal evening in Lund.
Scar Symmetry was formed in Avesta (SE) 2004 and plays melodic death metal. The band connects to metalsouth preferences via having toured together with Soilwork in 2005. Six albums with seven singles have been released and they are signed to Nuclear Blast Records (source: wikipedia). With deep regrets, I still got 15 minutes of high quality metal from this band. Let’s look forward and plan for a full length gig with these guys. And they are Lars Palmqvist (vocals), Roberth Karlsson (vocals), Per Nilsson (guitar), Benjamin Ellis (guitar), Andreas Silén (bass) and Henrik Olsson (drums).
Why not find our more on via the band’s Facebook account and official web site.
Orbit Culture
Orbit Culture was formed in 2013 in Eksjö (SE) draws also towards melodic death metal, but has also a touch of groove metal. The band consists of Niklas Karlsson (vocals, guitar), Richard Hansson (guitar), Fredrik Lennartsson (bass) and Christoffer Wallerstedt (drums). (source: wikipedia).
Thanks for a very professional performance and please, find out more below on their official web site and Facebook account respectively.
The Halo Effect
The supergroup The Halo effect which started its creative co-operation during the COVID-19 pandemic with the intention to return to the classical ‘Gothenburg sound’ of the 1990’s. The band consists of Niclas Engelin (lead guitar), Peter Iwers (bass), Mikael Stanne (lead vocals) and Daniel Svensson (drums). Jesper Strömblad on (rhythm guitar) was for this live gig replaced by Patrik Jensen (rhythm guitar). Jesper Strömblad, Peter Iwers and Daniel Svensson have a long co-operation and story together in metalsouth favorite In Flames, Gothenburg (SE). Pioneer bands of the Gothenburg melodic death metal sound normally are referred to as In Flames, At the Gates and Dark Tranquility. At the Gates is said to be the first with its debut album ‘The Red In The Sky is Ours’, which was heavily influenced by among others Entombed from the Stockholm side of the country and Swedish metal sound palettes. This subject demands a separate post and may come later. Mikael Stanne (lead vocals) is today the only remaining founding member of Dark Tranquility, a band still going highly strong and can be read about in other post of this blog. (source: wikipedia)
All of a sudden Peter Iwers left the scen and the band was without its bass player. With an audience in suspense for 30 seconds Peter was back with another bass guitar. What happened? It was probably not related to a sound effect, but rather to a broken string.
Thanks to The Halo Effect and the feelings they created in us via songs like The Defiant One (the newest release) and Gateways (1st release of the band) were super strong. Mikael Stanne creates a tight feeling with the audience via a relaxed talk in between songs by describing the work of the band and its history. These professional musicians fill the arena with musical tightness and happiness. Loads of smiles while setting the songs without any flaws. The feeling of an already good red wine, which gets better by age, came to mind. Just great!!
Really valuable information can be found via links below on the band performing at the Gothenburg 400 Years City Anniversary June 2-5, 2023, the Swedish Grammy nomination and their upcoming May tour in North America. You may also via FB get hold of ‘The official The Halo Effect band documentary’. Congratulations to all Gothenburgians and ticket holders and good luck from metalsouth touring.
Meshuggah
To call the three previously described bands for ‘support acts’ would be wrong. The quality of the four bands performing made the evening more of a mini metal festival. To be honest, I booked tickets for the Lund event in order to see Meshuggah, instead of buying tickets for Copenhell with a Swedish krona, which has never in history been weaker. As the saying goes…Swedish money makes best value by staying in Sweden. To see Meshuggah at Copenhell will be great for those having enough of strong Danish currency.
Meshuggah made me go to Lund and there I was lucky to get more acquainted to Scar Summer, Orbit Culture and The Halo Effect. I’m happy for my choice this year thanks to this evening and will return to Copenhell when maybe all of these bands are in the band list.
Meshuggah (meaning ‘crazy’ in Jiddish) landed in Sweden after a successful tour in North America. The band formed in Umeå (SE) in 1987 needs no detailed presentation, since they are moving towards the world top of the metal scen. Still, the members are Jens Kidman (vocals), Dick Lövgren (bass), Tomas Haake (drums), Mårten Hagström (guitar) and Fredrik Thordendal (guitar).
It’s great to watch interviews with band members (check out YouTube) and how sound they are with it comes to be classified in different genres like progressive metal, groove metal or math core metal. The basic idea seems to be that the music shall groove and the sound recognizable. The music the band presents may be complex, but the sound is so compact and gets in under your skin. My heart skips a few beats, which are replaced by the heavy rhythm blasted out from the stage. I’m so happy to have lived through this moment in Lund and can only congratulate those who will have the privilege to experience Meshuggah at Copenhell this summer.
Vinyls in collection
The work of completing the vinyl Meshuggah collection, as can be seen above, is in progress. And there is some work left to reach the nine studio albums, two live albums and one compilation album (source: wikipedia).
If there is an interest to make some room here for new vinyl purchases, please, have a look at a number of high quality and attractively priced used vinyls (LP, EP) and CDs at the metalsouth discogs account. Please, also follow metalsouth on social media via links below.
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