Originally posted in Valkyrian Music.

There are three stages pumping on this cruise between Stockholm and Riga, with pretty much the same schedules – hence the impossibility of covering all bands. I guess I could have watched just a song or two of each band, but then the review would be quite incomplete and sloppy, so no. Besides, there were a couple of bands I really wanted to see in full – the first and foremost being THE END OF GRACE, which is probably the only one who I’m reviewing with more detail here. They started on Sky Bar stage at 21:00 – same time as MOJO MADNESS on Club Hell stage – so even if visual rockers CRESTILLION kicked off ten minutes before that on Starlight Palace stage (and they surely would have been fun to shoot) I preferred to hang around during the TEoG soundcheck. Their first show had been precisely on that stage, one year ago, so this was kind of special. And the band dressed up to the occasion! Did I mention that this is also a Halloween cruise? Yep, almost everybody is wearing a costume, or a mask – bands included. TEoG went little beyond makeup as they soon realized they wouldn’t stand the heat of performing in a full costume.

I don’t know if it was for being the first band on that stage, being the guinea pigs for the sound tech, but TEoG experienced lots of audio problems in practically all instruments and all songs… but the attitude was there and the crowd appreciated it, moshing like crazy to prove it (it was early, they were all sober enough, so it was for real). Guitarists Jimmy and Robert climbed on the amps, singer Kriss jumped into the crowd and eventually Jimmy joined him… Like the year before, Seb from BATAAR helped them out with the Swedish verses in “Fist Face Bleed”, before the band played for the first time ever a new song, “Final Burden”, from their upcoming debut album. Despite the technical problems, one could see the killer potential of that song.

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