It is almost only a year to the day since Cinderella rocked my socks off at Sweden Rock Festival and they have already found their way back to Sweden. Originally, they were booked to play Fryshuset Arenan, a much bigger venue, but due to poor ticket sales (which my guess was due to the stupidly high ticket prices), they were moved to the smaller Klubben. This place was however packed to the max, which should be somewhere around 800 people. Two opening acts were booked to play, Norway’s Hollywood Vampires and Sweden’s Badmouth. I didn’t see either, but from what I heard, at least Badmouth were a complete catastrophe.
When Cinderella took the stage, it was action from get go. ”Once Around The Ride” from their debut Night Songs opened the set and for the second time around, I believe they chose the wrong opening song. At SRF they chose ”Second Wind”, which was also played here later on and it was the only misfit song at this concert. They have so many better songs to play! Just like at SRF, Tom Keifer’s voice sounded horrible at first, but got better the further into the set they got. Doesn’t he practice his voice long enough before the shows? ”Shake Me” followed and the place went completely nuts. The ballad ”Heartbreak Station” followed that and I must say it was a brave move to play a ballad as the third song. But it worked. Everybody sang along. Magic. ”Somebody Save Me” (could have been a great opener), ”Night Songs” and ”The More Things Change” (the ultimate show opener ever?) followed and the crowd was completely wild the whole time. On the downside, Tom Keifer had some technical problems and when his guitar completely vanished for a while, he just had it and threw his guitar over to his guitar tech with a mad look in his eyes. In ”Coming Home” we had an acoustic based uptempo song and we just couldn’t stand still to that. ”Second Wind” is a throwaway, but the jam at the end was excellent. To play two ballads in a row is to take a big chance, but ”Don’t Know What You Got” and ”Nobody’s Fool” never got boring. The crowd was with them all the time and when ”Gypsy Road” took off, the whole place exploded. Then, thank you and goodnight. But of course, they came back in for an encore. First off, ”Long Cold Winter”, a six-minute blues track. We loved it. Then ”Shelter Me”. Again, the place exploded. Understandable as it must be Cinderella’s best song of all. And then, goodbye. For this time.
In my book, one hour and 15 minutes is at least 15 minutes too short and I certainly missed ”Push Push”, ”Falling Apart At The Seems” and ”Sick For The Cure”. And would it kill Keifer to try to smile at least once? The guy looked like he’s sold his guitar and lost the money throughout the whole concert. The other guys were all smiles, though and you could tell that they really like to play music together again. We say thank you for now to Cinderella and keep our fingers crossed that a new record will appear with a tour to follow. They are certainly welcome back here.
Jon Wilmenius (8/10)
Setlist:
1. Once Around The Ride
2. Shake Me
3. Heartbreak Station
4. Somebody Save Me
5. Night Songs
6. The More Things Change
7. Coming Home
8. Second Wind
9. Don’t Know What You Got (Until it’s Gone)
10. Nobody’s Fool
11. Gypsy Road
12. Long Cold Winter
13. Shelter Me
CD & Festival reviews 