UNITED FORCES OF ROCK (UFOR) Festival in Ludwigsburg on October 30, 2005.
For those of you, who are interested, here is my personal review of the United Forces of Rock Festival in Ludwigsburg/Germany, which took place on Oct 30, 2005. Well
, let me start with saying that this was a PHANTASTIC festival and a GREAT show !! I have been to many rock & pop concerts in my life, but almost all of them basically presented the main group and maybe one or two warm-up bands. So
, this was my first festival with 9 more or less equal rock groups. What an incredible experience !! The festival started at 2:40pm and was finished at 2am. Nearly 12 hours of music, music, music
. !! Between most of the individual performances we all had the chance to chat with the artists and get our CD covers signed by them. There was quite a queue, let me tell you
. Here are some pictures. A lot of them are a litttle blurry as my camera let me down, but I think you can "feel" the atmosphere:
Hartmann: The whole show started with Oliver Hartmann (ex leadsinger of german band Atvance), who performed really extremely well. He obviously promoted his new CD Out in the Cold, which I love, and I was surprised to hardly hear any differences to his CD and it for sure wasnt playback. Hartmann is a cool and sympathetic guy, who managed to make contact with the crowd quite quickly. He played 5 or 6 songs of his CD and the atmosphere heated up in a positive way right from the start. Great !!
Pump:
Next in the line-up were Pump, who I didnt know and probably never will get to know better. For me their music was too loud and ordinary and without the melodies. I wasnt the only one who had this opinion.
Blanc Faces: Then came one of the highlights of this festival. Blanc Faces !! And they sounded even better than on their CD. I was one of those who preferred Hartmann to Blanc Faces in the specific forums recently, but after this show I am not so sure anymore. The two Le Blanc brothers were in a great mood and played just phantastically. The crowd enjoyed it a lot and they were singing along and having a real good time. Blanc Faces had never played in Europe before and they were very impressed by the phantastic atmosphere.
The german band Casanova with their frontman Michael Voss played their first concert at this venue 23 years ago. This proves they have been on the road for quite some time. While I do like them and I enjoyed their performance here as well, for me there is always something lacking in their music and it is keyboards. They don't have any keys ! But their guitarist Stephan Neumeier made up for the show. He was jumping up and down the stage like a rabbit. He did not do any stagediving, but that was about all he did not do ! What madman !! Great show !!
Casanova:
Another german band and a superb highlight !! And I was quite impressed by their new frontman Johan Fahlberg, who is swedish and was hired as leadsinger after Michael Bormann had left. First of all he must be close to 2 meters tall, so he nearly knocked his head on the stage ceiling, and much more important he has a phantastic voice. It also seems that he fits into the JH setup very well and they have a very good relationship. They played a number of songs of their latest CD Helluva Time, but also some of their old songs, like from The Journey Will Never End. They also signed my CD cover of Helluva Time, but unfortunately I missed Michael Mueller, their bass guitarist.
Jaded Heart:
Legs Diamond:
I am not so familiar with Legs Diamond yet. Therefore I didnt know so many of their songs and lost some of my interest. On top I started to feel a little tired after all these hours and I went to the bar to get some rest in form of a beer to be all ready for Mr. Billy Greer with his new band Seventh Key, who was next in the line-up.
Seventh Key: I was REALLY looking forward to these guys
! And they were one of the main reasons for me going to this festival. But it did not start off very well as they had some big problems setting up their instruments and getting their sound right. This whole setup procedure took at least 30 minutes and I thought they would never start. But in the end they did and it still did not sound right. The sound was much too loud and distorted, way too much bass, and in the first 2 songs Billy sounded terrible. He got better, though, but the sound did not. Both Terry Brock and Mike Slamer were brilliant, when they had the chance to show it. Mike must have sweated like hell underneath his woolcap and Mike should really change his total outfit. Well ... ! :-) Billy Greer seemed to be quite overwhelmed by the whole show, the crowd, etc. This live performance was basically their first after their Live in Atlanta show and their first in Europe ever. Well..,it wasnt a total screwup, but they definitely did not meet my expectations.
Wetton Downes: John Mitchell, ex-Marillion and still Kino, played the guitar and he showed a great performance.
Quite a nice act as well, even when much on the lite side. They played some of their songs of Icon, but also quite a few of the old Asia songs, like Heat of the Moment, Voice of Americaand Go, which obviously was hugely appreciated by the crowd. A lot of them knew every single word of these Asia songs and were singing along.
Pride of Lions: POL started to play at 1am in the morning and they were the main act !!! But in case you think that the crowd must have been asleep by this time, you are mistaken - by far !!! Wetton-Downes probably had mellowed us down a bit, but Jim Peterik and Toby Hitchcock sure woke us up again !! I promise you, I have not seen such a BRILLIANT performance for a long long time ! It was phantastic !! And this Toby Hitchcock chap has a voice, it is just AMAZING ! Gone, Music and Me, Sound of Home, What Kind of Fool, Man behind the Mask, to name a few of the songs they played. Unbelievable ! You could really feel that these guys love each other and their music. They were laughing and making jokes. Because Jim was in such a good mood he decided to play some Survivor songs as well and it was amazing to hear Tobys voice to Survivor ! I will NEVER forget this act !!
