Malmö, monday 22nd of February: – Review by AORSweden (Photos from the concert at photo-page)

KB (Kulturbolaget) in Malmö is the venue that have hosted the most concerts through the years for me. I’ve seen many superb concerts here, such as Fish, Savatage, Soul SirkUS and and most notably the fantastic gig by Toto in 2004. KB was also the venue for Gotthard’s concert this evening, their second here in a little more than 2 years.

Locally based Chains got the chance to open up for the guys in Gotthard, and I believe they took it great. With a good promotion and slightly better songmaterial these guys can be a well renowned name in the business in the coming years. They have a couple of really great songs already but needs more to do a whole record, but it will come…

Gotthard entered the stage a couple of minutes after 22.00, and started with Unspoken Words, one of the best songs from the new record. This one was followed by Gone Too Far and Top Of The World, the latter always gets the audience crazy.
The titletrack from the latest record, Need To Believe, followed and then the standard cover Hush, the only cover I personally can stand as I mean that the guys have so many songs to choose from that they don’t need to do covers at their concerts. After this the quality dropped a bit as they played songs that I don’t find as good as many others they have. Among these are 2 new songs from the latest record, which I find a lot weaker than the 2 previous ones. In the middle of the concert the guys did an acoustic medley with only Steve and Leo present on stage, were the audience got the chance to choose the songs. The audience in Malmö wanted Let It Be, Angel, One Life One Soul and Heaven, they got it.
The last part of the concert were phenomenal, except maybe for I Don’t Mind, not good enough to fit in a Gotthard-set in my book. But Shangri-La, All We Are, The Oscar Goes…, Lift U Up, Sister Moon and Anytime, Anywhere must always be included in a set of songs.

I left the concert after this but they also played Mighty Quinn and ended another great Gotthard-concert. Not the best I’ve seen with them, but as always great. I missed many songs that I find a lot better that many of the new ones, most notably I missed Domino Effect, Master Of Illusion, Firedance, Cupid’s Arrow and Eagle. But I fully understand that the guys must promote the new record. All in all, the concert were very good, and the audience of app. 5-600 got full value for the money. You always get a topshow from Gotthard.

SETLIST:
1. Unspoken Words
2. Gone Too Far
3. Top Of The World
4. Need To Believe
5. Hush
6. I Know, You Know
7. Make My Day
8. Right From Wrong
9. Delay From Hell
10. Unconditional Faith
Acoustic Set: 11. Let It Be 12. One Life,One Soul 13. Angel 14. Heaven
15. Shangri-La
16. All We Are
17. I Don’t Mind
18. The Oscar Goes…
19. Lift U Up
Encore 1:
21. Sister Moon
22. Anytime Anywhere
Encore 2:
23. Mighty Quinn

Rating: 7/10

Gothenburg, tuesday 23rd of  February: – Review by Westman

When a band releases a new album the band head on out on tour to promote their new album. It has always been like this and probably always will with some exceptions.Gotthard released their album Need To Believe 2009 and the turn had now come to visit Scandinavia.
Opening the show where a brand new band from Malmö Sweden, Chains.

Chains are young guys with a passion for melodic rock. Ever since the young colleagues in H.E.A.T entered the Swedish charts, melodic rock seems to have a second coming in Sweden and many bands at high quality have appeared, leaving Chains as no exception.
As I spoke to the guys before the show they declared that they weren’t in a hurry as they wanted to get together great songs before releasing a full-length album. This decision might be a wise one since out of the 6 songs performed 3 are of album quality. Opening song Give It To Me gets the crowd nodding approval, the song also gets the best reception. Chains might get somewhere with it’s Def Leppard sound if they keep developing their own sound.

Gotthard got on stage right on time and started the show with new, Unspoken Words. A pretty smart move I would say, since the track has a got high potential singing along on the chorus. If Chains got the audience started a little bit, Gothard fullfilled the task taking on the audience at start.
Gone To Far from Domino Effect was the second song of the night, followed by another older song Top Of The World, if someone in the audience didn’t get going at the start of the show, they would definitely be on their feet now.

Throughout the show we get a guitar solo duel between Freddie Scherer and Leo Leoni and also a beer drinking contest between the two won by Leoni who sweeps his beer in a incredible pace, perhaps he was thirsty? They also give us a voice/guitar duel between singer Steve Lee and Leoni this time won by Lee while Leoni claims he hasn’t got any more frets to outdo the singer.

First half ends with my favorite from the last CD, Unconditional Faith as opposite to the other songs on the CD, this one probably do better on CD than live. During the song Steve Lee unfortunately drops the microphone and although you don’t want such things to happen it makes a concert unique as the guys somewhat smile at each other at the end of the song.

Halfway through the gig Leoni and Lee takes the stage, letting the audience choose songs that they perform acoustic. This feature has been followed throughout Scandinavian tour and has been different from show to show in Gothenburg the following songs were played: Falling, One Life One Soul, Angel and Heaven.

Second part of the show heads on at full speed. Not a single ballad and to me that’s very positive. Don’t get me wrong, I do appreciate ballads but put them early in the set and get us rocking towards the end of the show just as Gotthard does!

Best received during the evening are Lift U Up and Joe South cover Hush. 
Personally I have long thought that Gotthard should skip their cover songs live, but when I hear Hush this evening I do understand why it sticks with the set list.

The evening would also end with a cover, as the band enters the stage for a second encore. Unfortunately, waiting a bit long to go on stage much of the audience has left and that’s a pity indeed. The last song is none other than Led Zeppelin‘s Immigrant Song asked by the audience. Steve Lee handles this song so well that the thought occurs to me: here’s the singer for Jimmy Page, when he wants to go out on a solo tour.

When this review are posted Gotthard has been forced to cancel the remaining shows due to Steve Lee having vocal problems. The shows however will be rescheduled so whenever they are, be sure not to miss one of the best melodic rock acts out there!

SETLIST:

1.Unspoken Words
2.Gone Too Far
3.Top Of The World
4.Need To Believe
5.Hush
6.I Know, You Know
7.Make My Day
8.Right From Wrong
9.Delay From Hell (guitar solo:Freddy Scherer)
10.Unconditional Faith

Acoustic Set:
11.Falling
12.One Life,One Soul
13.Angel
14.Heaven

15.Shangri-La
16.All We Are
17.I Don’t Mind (Guitar Duel)
18.The Oscar Goes To
19.Lift U Up
20.Guitar solo:Leo Leoni
21.Sister Moon
22.Anytime Anywhere
23.Immigrant Song