When the party in the head becomes reality: PAIN and Metalite at Falun’s Heymakers, 4.10.2024

Founder and frontman of the bands Hypocrisy and PAIN, co-founder of Lindemann, busy record producer with his own recording studio (“Abyss Studio”)… Listing all of Peter Tägtgren’s many musical activities would go beyond the scope of this review, but tonight, the focus is anyway on PAIN and the kick-off show of their 2024 Nordic tour in the Swedish city of Falun. Tonight’s show at “Heymakers” is also a kind of a home game for Peter Tägtgren: The village of Pärlby in the municipality of Ludvika, which he partly “owns” and where he and his “Abyss Studio” are based, is only an hour’s car ride from Falun, as is Grangärde, where he was born and raised. On their two-week tour through Sweden, Norway and Finland, PAIN will be supported by Metalite.

For almost a year now, a nationwide “väskförbud” [“ban of bags”] has been in force in Sweden. Due to the increased risk of terror attacks in Sweden, one is no longer allowed to bring bags to bigger events. Some venues make exceptions, and of all the venues we have visited in Sweden since the introduction of the “väskförbud”, “Heymakers” proves to be particularly generous: “Smaller handbags inside the venue” are allowed, and so is the storage of larger luggage in the paid cloakroom (Normally, this is not an option, as the authorities do not consider the cloakrooms to be suitable for this; jackets and the like are ok, though). In other words: When visiting “Heymakers”, the “väskförbud” is hardly noticeable (While the security measure is understandable, in practice, it may be a stress factor that could deter some potential visitors from attending an event in the first place).

Speaking of obstacles: At the cloakroom, you are presented with a QR code. You are supposed to use the cloakroom, but can only do so with a smartphone that has a working internet connection. Furthermore, you are asked to pay via Swish, a mobile payment application in Sweden that can only be used if you have a Swedish bank account, a Swedish BankID and a Swedish personal identity number. Cash payments are not accepted. Tourists and the like were obviously not taken into account when this system was introduced. Astonishing in the year 2024, and in a popular tourist destination like Sweden.

As soon as the doors open at 8 PM, “Heymakers” fills up pretty quickly. Surprising, because on the way to the venue, the city centre of Falun looks like a ghost town in the middle of the night, even though it’s a Friday evening. With loud sirens, blue flashing emergency lights and an intro that announces the individual band members as “the commander of intelligence, the commander of biological environment, the commander of infrastructure, the commander of technology” and “the commander of power”, Metalite enter the stage at 9 PM and start their set with white sparkle fountain effects and… a cover version of Sabaton‘s “Ghost Division“? Well, not really, even though the beginning of their own composition “Disciples Of The Stars” sounds very similar to the beginning of said Sabaton song. Be that as it may, the set starts off strong.

It would be easy to say that it should be a piece of cake for an attractive frontwoman like Erica Ohlsson to win over the audience, especially when it seems to consist mostly of middle-aged men, like tonight. At the same time, it would be unfair to reduce Metalite only to the looks of their vocalist. Metalite were founded in Sweden’s capital Stockholm in 2015 by guitarist Edwin Premberg and original frontwoman Emma Bensing. The former had the vision to fuse metal with the sound of eurodance. Nightwish‘s era with Anette Olzon as frontwoman was particularly inspiring for him. In 2019, Emma Bensing was replaced by Erica Ohlsson, and with Erica Ohlsson came the rockier stage outfits made of leather and PVC, turning her into the visual focus of the band. At least tonight, the headbanging bassist Robert Majd also knows how to attract attention. In addition to Metalite, Robert Majd is also active in the bands Captain Black Beard, Nighthawk and Weapon and is therefore anything but inexperienced.

With songs like “Far From The Sanctuary“, “Blazing Skies“, “Afterlife” and “Peacekeepers“, the setlist covers tracks from all four studio albums that Metalite have released so far (“Heroes In Time”, “Biomechanicals”, “A Virtual World” and “Expedition One”). Metalite describe their musical style as “modern power metal”, although they say they have also come across terms such as “dance metal” and “pop metal”. Due to the very catchy, poppy and commercial direction of the music, I myself have to think of the term “schlager metal” here and there, similar to the German happy metal band Freedom Call. It’s certainly not to everyone’s taste, but at least tonight, the live performance stays strong until the end, and there is a market out there for bands like Metalite.

After Metalite‘s 30-minute set, some concert visitors are a little confused as to whether PAIN will enter the stage in half an hour or an hour and a half, as the websites of “Heymakers” and “Nortic”, the company responsible for ticket sales for this event, state different starting times for tonight’s headliner. More on that at the end of this review. In the end, “Heymakers” was correct (10 PM), as PAIN kick off their show at around 10.20 PM with little fanfare but lots of headbanging and “Same Old Song“. The following “I’m Going In” is another older track, before the current ninth studio album “I Am” is represented for the first time tonight with “Don’t Wake The Dead“. An interesting approach.

This is technically the second time that I see the band perform live on stage. However, four and a half years ago, in Stockholm in February 2020, it was not a concert by PAIN, but a concert by Lindemann, a project by Rammstein vocalist Till Lindemann, whose accompanying live band was basically PAIN (i.e. Sebastian Svalland on guitar, Jonathan Olsson on bass, Peter Tägtgren’s son Sebastian Tägtgren on drums and Peter Tägtgren himself on guitar). Contrary to what the name suggests, Lindemann was a joint project between Till Lindemann and Peter Tägtgren, and already back then, I had the impression that the latter, who composed all the music for the debut album “Skills In Pills” and most of the music for the follow-up album “F & M”, deserved much more attention. The first Lindemann tour at the time ultimately remained the only one; in November 2020, Peter Tägtgren left the project. Since then, it has been continued as a solo project under the name Till Lindemann, with a different line-up at live shows and without the sound of Peter Tägtgren, which, in my opinion, made Lindemann‘s music so special in the first place.

But back to the present and “Don’t Wake The Dead“: There are technical problems with the visually impressive drum set, which is located on an elevated platform behind the rest of the band. No less impressive is the professionalism of the string instrumentalists, who stand statically in the dark before the set can continue with “Call Me“. If you didn’t see a flashlight shining around the drum set, you would think it was part of the show. Then, during “Call Me“, one drum pedal fails completely, and the performance has to be interrupted. Or as Peter Tägtgren puts it: “The first evening with new stuff and new songs […] is always a bit chaotic.” The set continues with two songs from “I Am”, “Push The Pusher” and “Revolution“, followed by “End Of The Line“, “Zombie Slam“, “Suicide Machine” and a particularly powerful “The Great Pretender“. “Go With The Flow” comes with a surprising costume change. In Peter Tägtgren’s case, it’s an outfit very similar to the one that he wears in the corresponding music video. The same applies to the following “Party In My Head“, only now there are also colourful beach balls flying through the hall, turning PAIN‘s heavy metal show into a party.

During this year’s Eurovision Song Contest, there were claims that the runner-up, Croatia’s entry Baby Lasagna, had been heavily inspired by PAIN‘s “Party In My Head” when composing his song “Rim Tim Tagi Dim“. Before Peter Tägtgren verbally dismissed the plagiarism accusations, he had published a video on YouTube, entitled “Do you like lasagna?”, in which he silently eats lasagne while watching Baby Lasagna‘s performance at Eurovision. A man with a sense of humour.

After “Coming Home“, the string instrumentalists sit on bar stools and perform “Have A Drink On Me“, with Peter Tägtgren sporting a black cowboy hat. And after “Let Me Out” and “On And On“, the set is concluded with “Shut Your Mouth“. There are still minor technical problems here and there, but nothing that audibly affects the show. The technical issues are unfortunate, but something that can happen. Peter Tägtgren makes a similar statement after the kick-off show: “Chaos for us. A lot of technical problems. Crowd was great. I think we overall did a good show.” And, indeed, they did.

As said, technical problems can happen, and nobody seems to be seriously upset about it. What should not happen, however, are the aforementioned different starting times for PAIN: “Heymakers” stated 10 PM, “Nortic” 11 PM, and both timetables remained unchanged until the end of the event. Given the actual starting time (around 10.20 PM), it is quite possible that there were concert visitors tonight who only arrived at the venue when PAIN were already 40 minutes into their set. When asked about the incorrect information, “Nortic” more or less dismissed the whole thing by saying that concert visitors who arrive on time for the “doors open” would have enough time to make sure they don’t miss anything from the event. Unfortunately, that attitude is just as unrealistic as the assumption that concerts in Sweden are only attended by Swedish residents (see the digital cloakroom tickets). We are living in difficult times, with inflation and the like, which is also reflected in falling ticket sales. All the more reason to avoid alienating those who still make the effort to attend concerts. Not everyone has the opportunity to be at the venue when the doors open, and that is precisely why it is the responsibility of concert organisers and the like to communicate information such as schedules clearly and consistently right from the start.

A photo gallery with additional pictures of the event can be found here.