The Swedish scene, for those of you unfamiliar with it, might not be what you think. Considering the high number of quality rock & metal bands per capita in this country, you’d think there was a huge scene for this kind of music. And in a way, there is. There are small clubs and venues in most towns and cities. But the large amount of bands means that getting a slot in one of those clubs can be a bit tricky, and when you do, the audience might be jaded from last week’s concert or they may be attending a different show on this particular night.
And so Stockholm rockers Dead Lord came to visit Linköping, a city of some 150.000 inhabitants just 2 hours from Stockholm and a slight bit further from Gothenburg (Sweden’s two biggest cities). A decent spot to rock out. The band has made a name for themselves as a great live act while touring heavily throughout Europe. So it was rather strange last night when main-man Hakim Krim and his brothers-in-rock played at one of the city’s smaller venues in front of a half full room, if that. Dead Lord doesn’t do too many gigs in Sweden so you’d think fans would show up for this semi-exclusive event. But for whatever reason, the crowd was sparse and not very lively, even though opening act Butterfly did their best to warm the place up.
But far be it from Dead Lord to be deterred by these things. They entered the stage as confidently as if they were playing a big festival in front of a roaring crowd. While humbly stating that they were glad we had let them come to play their rock for us, they fell into a full-on attack of a setlist, and it wasn’t long before a few heads started to nod along, restless feet tapping the concrete.
Once they hit the sixth track, ”Onkalo” (named after a finnish nuclear waste dump site, for some reason), the joint exploded with people headbanging, dancing around and generally having a blast. The mark of true rockers is this ability to completely turn a crowd while not giving a damn about whether the place is packed or not. Dead Lord came to rock, and rock they did. Burning through a full 11 songs before exiting, they came back for more, pulling off crowd favorites ”Hank” and ”Ghost Town” before finally calling it a night. Next time, Dead Lord deserve a bigger venue and a bigger, livelier crowd. Though I doubt they’d care too much as long as they got to rock their rock.