Muskelrock 2015

MUSKELROCK 2015 | MAY 28-30 | ALVESTA, SWEDEN
This annual festival is held in the old amusement park Tyrolen. The atmosphere is quite impressive and is exposed not only by the looks of the old amusement park (colorful arches with lights, the wooden “tent” with amazing paintings and cute benches, the little games on the side and of course the big “Tyrolen” sign), but also by the hospitality of the warm-hearted volunteers.

Day one:

As predicted the weather was rainy and cold. The shows that were played in open air lacked a little bit of strength due to the weather, but people were making the best of it. The shows inside the so-called circus tent appeared to be more powerful. With bands such as Travelin Jack, Portrait and Antichrist that’s not really a surprise. The headliner of this first day was The Rods. Besides their own classics The Rods played a tribute to the legend Dio with songs such as “Heaven and Hell” and “Stand up and Shout”. As usual there is one band left to play after the headliner that plays inside the circus tent. This night this was Heat who ended this first festival day with catchy Hard Rock songs. Considering the icy cold weather at night their name was quite ironic.

Day two:
Where day one ended, day two proceeded. That means impressive performances while the weather seems to get worse. Nevertheless the performances of bands such as Capilla Ardiente, Hessian and Gehennah were, as said before, still impressive and worth fighting the stone cold weather. Gehennah, for example, started their show powerful with a bass guitar that gets smashed in the minutes, an outstanding Rob Coffinshaker and a singer who shows the audience his happy drunk state of mind. They impressed with songs as “Bitch With A Bulletbelt”, “Hardrocker” and GG Allin’s “Drink, Fight and Fuck”. The day ended with a very special show. A mixture between Bullet and Thor with loads of guest appearances, fireworks and classic Heavy Metal Songs. Bullet kicked off the performance and played songs as “Stay Wild”, “Turn It Up Loud” and “From Dusk Till Dawn”. After Bullet’s own songs it was Thor’s turn. With Bullet and Thor together it was one big party! They played tracks as “Thunder On The Tundra”, “Let The Blood Run Red” and “Ride Of The Chariots”. Although the show was extremely entertaining, the quality of Thor’s songs slightly lacked. The end of the whole performance was enormous with all the guest performers on stage, again with loads of firework and with Bullet’s “Bite The Bullet” as party music.

Day three:

The third and last day was a special one for many of Muskelrock’s visitors, as the main event of the day started already at 13:15. At that specific time the premiere of the movie Kung Fury! Kicked off. People were laughing their hangovers away and even more, building up a real party mood! The movie contained more than many unreliable elements and those elements made the only 30 minutes lasting movie ultimately hilarious. To give an extra and clear insight about the movie, it contains amongst others: flying and fighting arcade machines, Viking girls with machine guns, Thor and Hitler, a laser-raptor and Triceracop. As said before, the movie built a foundation for a final party day. And with bands as Speedtrap, Hypnos, Tribulation and above all Ashbury this day was a total blast! The day was closed up by Anvil and with that show not only the day ended, but also this edition of Muskelrock!

To summarize Muskelrock, the atmosphere that I described in the beginning, together with an awesome line-up and other activities, make Muskelrock an amazing festival that is definitely worth checking out! And although the cold weather was a bitch, this festival can’t be stopped. As Thor could have said: “Only the strong shall party!”