What a great show by Bigbang at the small club Göta Källare on Friday December 9th! For those of you that don’t know who they are, Bigbang is a trio from Norway consisting of Øystein Greni on guitar and vocals, Olaf Olsen on drums, and bassist Nikolai Eilertsen. They play their own blend of rock music that is heavily influenced by classic rock from the sixties and seventies. One band that comes to mind is Cream – both visually and musically. What makes Bigbang so good is Øystein’s stage presence and ability to entertain a crowd, but also the fact that all three members are so in sync with each other, which makes the music really dynamic.

The wife and I stood front and center right up against the stage. The band was really great and gave it all even though there were only a few hundred people in the crowd. They opened with the instrumental ”Major Pronin” which sounded great. Whenever Øystein would come out to the edge of the stage for a guitar solo, I would have to duck to avoid getting hit by the guitar neck – that’s how close to the stage we were! My favorite songs of the night were ”Where the World Comes To An End,” ”Wild Bird,” and ”To The Mountains.” Øystein acutally stage dived right over our heads during ”To The Mountains” – very cool indeed!

Because we were standing so close, we actually got the perfect live sound as opposed to hearing the concert through the PA like you normally do when you stand further back. The bass came straight from Nikolai’s bass amp, and the guitar straight from Øystein’s Fender and Vox amps while Olaf’s drums came through unmiked right in front of us. I also have to say that the crowd was really good, with everyone singing along, and jumping up and down.

A song that I wasn’t familiar with before but that I’ve really started to like since the concert is ”Isabel” from Bigbang’s album Edendale from 2009. Øystein played it on a Fender Stratocaster with a capo on the four lowest strings (E-G) and the B, and high E string open. The whole song is great with its haunting feel, but the solo at the end is just fantastic! Speaking of guitars, Øystein had some beautiful ones with him. It was the sunburst Stratocaster that I just mentioned, a Rickenbacker 12-string that he used for ”From a Distance,” and a beautiful vintage Gibson Les Paul Goldtop. He also had two really nice Harmony Stratotone guitars, one of which was in a Newport Green color. The concert ended with ”Girl in Oslo” which is a really fun song live when everyone in the audience is singing along. Thanks for a great show guys and please come back soon. I will keep spreading the word about this awesome band!

To hear Bigbang for yourself, head over to Spotify
Official website: bigbang.no Twitter: twitter.com/bigbangno

Setlist:

Start: 20:35

01. Major Pronin
02. Call Me
03. Where the World Comes to an End
04. Cigarette
05. Nothing Finished Yet
06. From a Distance
07. Wild Bird
08. Isabel
09. My First Time
10. Hurricane Boy
11. New Woman
12. Sing and Dance
13. To The Mountains

Encore:
14. Something Special
15. A Thousand Times Over
16. Girl in Oslo

End: 22:10

Notes about the concert:

- Really happy that they were selling the classic Zero tshirts in the merchandise booth. Was finally able to replace my old one.
- Billy Corgan didn’t speak to the audience at all. A bit of a bummer, but I guess that’s just the way he is, cause he didn’t seem to be in a bad mood. He was actually laughing at himself when he messed up the “Peter Piper Picked a Peck of Pickled Peppers” rhyme.
- Since this was the first show on the European tour they had apparently decided to switch up the setlist a bit, which unfortunately meant that they didn’t close with “Bullet With Butterfly Wings” like they’ve always done on this tour both before and after the Stockholm show.
- They played for over two hours, which felt quite generous. No encores, they just staed on the stage for the entire show.
- Impressed by new drummer Mike Byrne. Talented guy who also did a great job playing electric piano during “For Martha.” Great version of the song by the way.
- The songs from Siamese Dream were the best of course. “Soma” and “Cherub Rock” were fantastic.

Setlist:

Start: 20:41

01. Quasar
02. Panopticon
03. Starla
04. Geek U.S.A.
05. Muzzle
06. Window Paine
07. Lightning Strikes
08. Soma
09. Siva
10. Oceania
11. Frail and Bedazzled
12. Silverfuck
13. Pale Horse (Preceded by Peter Piper Picked a Peck of Pickled Peppers)
14. Pinwheels
15. Thru the Eyes of Ruby (w/ “I Am One” tease)
16. Cherub Rock
17. Owata
18. My Love is Winter
19. For Martha

End: 22:47
Length: 2hrs 6mins

As a rock music fan, it’s rare that a band manages to rise to the top and stay there. The names that decorate that list are among legend: Metallica, Pearl Jam, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Nirvana (while they were around), and Disturbed.

Disturbed have released five albums to since their inception in the early 2000s. They blasted to the top of the charts on hits like “Stupefy” and “Down with the Sickness” and have remained there since. Unfortunately, lead singer David Draiman has issued a statement saying that the band will not be touring in 2012 and will go on an indefinite hiatus.

Known for his macabre digital paintings and his sardonic country music, Terrell seemed the perfect candidate to create the stunning visuals for Disturbed’s final tour.

“My video is not my true voice, it is the residue of my ambition,” Terrell stated. “But when I’m working with a client, I like the challenge of trying to please them even though it’s not necessarily my own work. That’s the real challenge.”

Charlie and Disturbed worked together to create a crop of new visuals that represented the band’s new material on Asylum, but also included the band’s previous music and artwork.

“It’s hard for us as artists and as a band to give that creativity to someone else and trust their vision,” said Disturbed lead guitarist, Dan Donegan, “and [Charlie] had a nice sense of direction, some cool, dark images, and was pretty much on the same page as where we are with the imagery. A lot of stuff just really blew us away.”

“I like what he did with Stupefy, which was our first single from The Sickness,” Donegan said. “[Terrell] took images from our old video and just warped them and kind of turned them around, incorporated some of his new textures, and I thought that was a creative way to tie in that old look from 11 years ago. With our trademark art work, “The Guy”, to kind of bring those things in there was important to us because those images have become a big part of the band.”

“Everything is about matching the video to the song,” said Terrell.

Notes about the concert:

Once again Flea introduced the opening act Femi Kuti & The Positive Force, and joined them on stage for their last song.

Surprisingly short set, only 1 hour and 38 minutes. You can tell that John Frusciante is not in the band anymore, because most songs have been trimmed down to their bare essentials – no embellishments and no jamming. The songs are basically played exactly like the album versions. What was really strange was that they didn’t play “Californication” the second night. Now, I’m all for varying the setlist, but to omit one of the band’s biggest hits, and a song that I’m sure most people expected to hear is really too bad. The song always get such a big reaction in Sweden with the line “Little girls from Sweden dream of silver screen quotations.”

But what was nice about this concert was how different the setlist was from the previous night. That’s a testament to what an accomplished musician Josh Klinghoffer is. He’s actually taken the time to learn a large part of the Chili Pepper’s material so that they can change up the set in whichever way they see fit.’

To me personally the second night was better than the first, solely based on song selection. I thought it was really great that we got to hear such surprising choices as “She’s Only 18,” “Sir Psycho Sexy,” and “They’re Red Hot.”

Favorite songs of the night: “Scar Tissue,” “She’s Only 18,” “Me and My Friends,” and the wonderfully long “Sir Psycho Sexy.” Next time the Chili’s come around I want to hear all of Blood Sugar Sex Magik from start to finish as part of the show!

Setlist:

01. Monarchy of Roses
02. Universally Speaking
03. Tell Me Baby
04. Scar Tissue
05. Look Around
06. Otherside
07. Goodbye Hooray
08. She’s Only 18
09. Me & My Friends
10. The Adventures of Rain Dance Maggie
11. Can’t Stop
12. Ethiopia
13. Higher Ground (Stevie Wonder cover)
14. Under the Bridge
15. By the Way

Encore:
16. Chad & Mauro Jam
17. Sir Psycho Sexy
18. They’re Red Hot (Robert Johnson cover)
19. Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere (Neil Young cover)
20. Give It Away

Length: 1hr 38mins