YOU ARE HERE TOUR | THE MONKEY PUZZLE TOUR 2006/2007 UK TOUR | EUROPEAN TOUR | FESTIVALS | USA TOUR FESTIVALS   June 05 Italy Bologna, Gods Of Metal - INFO   June 11 Sweden Sölvesborg, Sweden Rock - INFO | REVIEW   June 12 Netherlands Lichtenvoorde (near Enschede), Arrow Classic Rock - INFO | REVIEW | PHOTOS | PHOTO UK June 14th through to June 24th - VENUES June 26 Germany Balingen, Bang Your Head - INFO | PHOTOS | PHOTOS | PHOTOS | PHOTOS | PHOTOS   July 8 Belgium Roeselare, Schwung - on stage 18.00 INFO | PHOTOS | PHOTOS | PHOTOS | PHOTOS | PHOTOS

Sweden Rock Festival 2004 report

June 10 - 12 / Solvesborg, Sweden

UFO Thanks to “Mad Mike” Schenker, a lot of real life Spinal Tap-stories follow the UFO name. But currently, the Michael Schenker saga of UFO is definitely over.

Vinnie Moore is the new choice on guitar, and he has brought to UFO many of the things Steve Morse brought to Deep Purple ten years ago, with energetic and fast playing, yet demonstrating plenty of heart and soul.

Also new is John Bonham’s excellent drummer son Jason Bonham, and along with the return of Paul Raymond on guitars and keyboards, UFO has offered the most interesting line up in years. In addition, You Are Here is also a great album, maybe their best in the last 20 years.

But it was truly a retrospective UFO the crowd witnessed as they headlined the Rock Stage on Friday night. “Mother Mary” and “Let It Roll” started it off, and the hits just kept on coming.
Many UFO fans have “Strangers In The Night” in their record collection, and this night saw the return of many of that album’s classics. “Only You Can Rock Me,” “This Kids,” “Love To Love,” “Lights Out,” “Too Hot To Handle,” “I’m A Loser,” and a tremendous version of “Rock Bottom” were all highlights. They struggled a bit with the Sharks number “Fighting Man,” but the new ones were truly great as well, with the You Are Here ballad “Baby Blue” as another definite highlight.

In my opinion, “Rock Bottom” might have been the best song performed during the whole festival, at least for the two days I witnessed the event. After a blistering performance, Phil Mogg, Pete Way, Paul Raymond, Vinnie Moore, and Jason Bonham rounded it up with great versions of “Doctor Doctor” and “Shoot Shoot,” and one of 2004’s best performances at the SRF was history. (Photo Inge Rand)

©2004 FRODE JOHNSRUD

VISIT THE WEBSITE

Hi friends,

just a short note to tell you that I was at the Arrow festival in Lichtenvoorde/Holland this week-end, an amazing festival I can tell you.

UFO played on june 12th, at 18.30 under a huge tent called "the Rock Palace" for one hour : the place was packed to death (difficult to say how many people inside
-something like almost 5000- as the festival day was attended by 17000 people), and the boys did a helluva set ! Outside, the weather was just AWFUL (it rained until basically
17.30, and the site was absolutly shitty during the rest of the day), but fortunately, no problem for UFO this time...

here's the setlist :
Mother Mary
Let It Roll
Daylight Goes To Town
I'm A Loser
This Kids
Only You Can Rock Me
Love To Love
Too Hot To Handle
Lights Out
Doctor Doctor

As you can see, no surprises at all, just a shortest setlist as they played during their headlining gigs. But they rocked the place, really ! And, it's good to say, a few french
fans were posted in the front with a banner saying something like "France loves Ufo" (not sure about that at all, but the word France was clear !!), and at the end of the show,
Phil said "Vive la France", poiting them with his finger. Really cool for us, froggies ! (no mention of the day after and football debacle of the UK... -laughs ! - ) I couldn't meet
the boys because of the very rigid organisation, and as I had no artists backstage pass... But Vinnie saw me in the photographers pit and said hello during "Daylight" !


Until that, enjoy the British tour !! I would have loved to come for almost one gig, but...

Cheers

Benji

ps : I'll be, for sure, at the Schwung Festival in Belgium, their last gig this summer. That's going to be great !

Top: Phil Mogg | Vinnie Moore

Left: Pete Way | Above: Jason Bonham

PHOTOS ©2004 Rudy De Doncker

VISIT WEBSITE

Vinnie Moore - Pete Way - Phil Mogg

Vinnie Moore - Jason Bonham - Pete Way

3 Photos ©2004 Jan De Duytsche

©2004 Gilles

Hey Tristan,

Back from of Roeselare in Belgium !
The meeting/festival was showing a great list of groups:

The Ugly buggy Boys, Thunder, Rose Tattoo, UFO, Cheap Trick, Status Quo and Deep Purple.

The organization was great. not too much waiting between the groups, the change of materials was a show per se. Congratulation to all these teams that have achieved a admirable work.
Back to UFO: After a ROSE TATTOO, our favorite group has done a big show, in my opinion the best of the evening. even though the crow came from STATUS QUO and DEEP PURPLE that were here as stars.

UFO got much more applause after its performance. I've found Phil MOGG in a great shape, by far the nicest voice of the Festival, wonderful in "I'm a loser" and "love to love". The new sound of the group is perfect allowing Phil to express all his talent.

I had a banner that was saying "We are here, Lyon (France) loves UFO" and Phil said something between two tracks "hey, people came from France, here from Lyon, this is great".
No need to tell you my happiness. Pete Way was fantastic, smiling, a bit more skinny I found, looking in a great physical shape. He was able to do his show, ending lowing on the floor on "Rock Bottom" as he loves to do it often. Vinnie Moore is more and more at ease with old tracks. He managed to show all his class and dexterity. Always as nice and present, scowling at wish for the great pleasure of the numerous photographs. Jason and Paul did perfectly their job.

Here is the set list:
Mother Mary
Let it roll
Daylight goes to town
I am a loser
This Kids
Only you can rock me
Love to love
Too hot to handle
Lights out
Rock Bottom
Doctor doctor

A short show but intense of about 1 hour. Here we go, Of course this time we did not see them after the concert but they have seen that we were here for them !
On my site http://perso.wanadoo.fr/gilles.zeff/ you can see the photo taken with a small poor resolution argentic camera, I did not dare to take my numeric one.
See you soon
Gilles

©2004 Gilles