It was my first time seeing Freedom Call live on stage and I've never watched live-shows on Youtube before, so I was really excited of what would happen on stage.
The location fit perfectly: the Rockfabrik in Nuremberg is a really cool place for rock partys. It has this kind of special touch due to the decor and atmosphere. The audience was also pretty cool. Up to 150 people attended the show. This might sound small, but the show was sold-out! And those 150 fans felt like 2.000, because everybody was partying and screaming so loud. There was really high energy and it was the first "smaller" concert which totally hit me.
But before Freedom Call entered the stage, two support acts tried to set the audience on fire.
The first band of this evening was a very young metal band, called Hyrax. I haven't heard of them so far, but they did a very good job. It wasn't my style of music, because it wasn't so melodic, but they definitely kicked ass. Opening acts have always hard work to do to mobilize the masses and Hyrax succeeded very well.
This is something I can't say from the second support act: Silverlane. I was already familiar with the band name, but never listend to them before ... and I won't listening to them again. For sure, all band members are skilled musicians, but the songmaterial wasn't my cup of tea. The songs were very similar to each other and also way too long in my opinion. They just couldn't grab my attention and to me they weren't so sympathic.
Around 10 pm Freedom Call entered the stage with their song "Back Into The Land Of Light". What an amazing opener. This song spread a happy mood, immediately ... and this great mood went further and further with the following tracks "Freedom Call" and "Hero On Video". All amazing sing-along tracks. On "Tears Of Babylon" the whole crowd jumped up and down - another stunning party anthem. The band kicked ass, the fans were on fire - so what do you want more?
Especially singer Chris Bay has a great talent to entertain you. He was talking and joking a lot between the songs ... sometimes up to 7 minutes just talk, but it was so funny. In some terms it felt like a happy metal comedy show and this fits perfectly to Freedom Call and their music. Great! Vocal performance was also really good. Yes, Chris isn't the best singer, but he is very charismatic and his voice just fits to all those feel-good-songs.
Axeman Lars Rettkowitz also delivered his very best: very melodic and terrific guitar solos and it was fun to see Chris and Lars nagging on each other.
Drummer Rami Ali had also his moment of fame with his drum solo, which was also very funny.
Bass player Ilker Ersin was also back in the game after some years and for sure he is a very gifted player.
If you already read my CD-review to "Ages Of Light", you'll know that Freedom Call recorded some very different versions of their past hits. Two of them made it into the setlist: "Mr. Evil" in a reggae version and "Rockin' Radio" in a typical old-school rock'n'roll version. The former one was really crazy and I thought I'm attending the wrong concert, but yeah we had fun - even with reggae music at this evening ;)
To the end the setlist got stronger and stronger "Power & Glory", "Perfect Day" and "Far Away" were amazing party tracks, which worked very well on stage. With "Metal Invasion" the official part was over and after a short break we got right into the encore ... and this topped everything: Freedom Call played my two favorites: "Warriors" and "Land Of The Light". I could listen to these songs again and again and also live they made me move. Fantastic! So in conclusion I can say that the whole setlist was just awesome. Freedom Call played most of my favorite songs, that was pretty cool.
So is there something negative to say? Yes, only one thing: the sound. Sometimes the instruments were too loud and you didn't hear the vocalists sing. That was the case with every band at this evening. From time to time it was a lot better and then again more worse, but all in all it doesn't affected the party-feeling too much and the fun was still big.
So if you have the chance to see Freedom Call live you just have to visit one of their shows. You will get a two-hour-show with lots of fun and tons of gags. So to say it with Chris' words: "We had so much fun ... just like all the other '2.000' fans here tonight!"
Setlist:01. Back Into The Land Of Light
02. Freedom Call
03. Hero On Video
04. Rockstars
05. Tears Of Babylon
06. Farewell
07. Hunting High And Low
08. Drum Solo
09. Mr. Evil (Reggae version)
10. Rockin' Radio (Killerbilly version)
11. We Are One
12. Power & Glory
13. Perfect Day
14. Far Away
15. Metal Invasion
Encore:
16. Warriors
17. Land Of The Light
http://www.freedom-call.net/
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