And just when I thought HCSS couldn’t impress me more than they already had, they do THIS  I had seen them twice before, both amazing rock gigs, but this one at Cirkus was by far the best. Being a bigger stage, with more space for Jocke to move around, better lights and the fact that they played longer, I guess all of that helped, but it’s still the band’s full merit for such an unforgettable night.

They kicked off with the 2 first songs of their latest album: “Sadistic Girls” and “Guestlist”. The studio version of the latter has a few words in Finnish in the beginning (as if on a tv or radio show) and as there were some Finns in the house, Jussi 69 came on stage to say those words. Well, scream those words – especially “perkele” – is more like it

Then they played the title-track of “Split Your Lip” and went down memory lane with “Liberation” – my all time favourite I was really happy as they hadn’t played it the last time, but even happier and surprised was I when the first chords of “Have You Been Around” echoed. This is also from their first album (second, if you consider “It’s Only Rock’N’Roll” as their debut) and I’d never seen it live before. Thought they had quit playing it, as one has to cut the oldest songs to make room for the newest. But it seems they rescued this oldie for this tour and it really made my day.

More or less in the middle of the set, Adde and Martin left the stage to let Jocke and Vic perform the acoustic “There Comes That Sick Bitch”. And when they came back, André Warnie from Bandit Rock Radio was with them. The Bandit listeners (me included) had voted HCSS as Best Swedish Band, but when the awards cerimony took place, on April 2nd, they were on tour and couldn’t collect the prize. So André was there to give it to its righteous owners.

I can’t remember on which song Jocke started to say they had played in Göteborg the night before (getting loud whistles as there’s this rivalry between the two cities), but that Stockholm was a much better audience. Obviously, the whistles turned into a roar of approval and applauses.

For “Last Call For Alcohol”, the last song before the encore, Jocke put everybody singing with him, and even picked a boy and a girl from the audience to do so on stage.

“Moonshine” is still my least favourite song, but I have to admit that live it worked super – especially when everybody knew all the words. Guess that Bandit playing it half a dozen times per day bore its fruits…

As “We Don’t Celebrate Sundays” was the last song on the last gig of the tour, CRASHDÏET and THE 69 EYES got on stage to sing along,  party style  Sadly, they only did the group pose for the official photographer and that’s why you only see their butts on the last pic.

Setlist:

• Sadistic Girls
• Guestlist
• Split Your Lip
• Liberation
• My Good Reputation
• Wild Boys
• Have You Been Around
• Dreamin’ In A Casket
• Bully
• There Comes That Sick Bitch
• Kick On The Upperclass
• Into Debauchery
• Last Forever
• Hateful
• Medicate Me
• Bag On Your Head
• Last Call For Alcohol

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• Moonshine
• We Don’t Celebrate Sundays

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