Firefest 2014: The Final Fling- my review
Date: October 28, 2014 10:20AM
Just got back from 3 days of Firefest and I had a great weekend.
Friday:
I only saw 3 songs of Angels Or Kings, but they sounded good. I need to check out their CD. A nice opener. Redrum started well with "Scream" and "Can't Buy No Hero", but the next 4/5 tracks were mediocre at best. Final song "Dust In Your Eyes" was a good ending though. I only saw the first and the last song of Circus Maximus. The first one was boring, so we decided to take a break. The last song "Last Goodbye" was good. It was great to see Shy live again after more than 20 years. When Tony Mills sang the chorus of "Telephone" (my favourite Shy song) in a much lower key, I was afraid that Shy's performance would turn out to be a disappointment. But then Tony Mills hit some of the high notes in the verses of "Telephone" and he continued to improve during the set. Highlights for me were "Emergency", "Can't Fight The Nights" and "When The Love Is Over". The Poodles started much too late because of "technical difficulties" and therefore only played a short set. That set was very good, with "Seven Seas", "One Night Of Passion" and "Caroline" being my highlights. I saw only the last 4 songs of Ten, because of a meal break and they sounded great. I'm not sure about their new single yet, but loved "After The Love Has Gone" and "Red". Although I was a bit disappointed H.E.A.T. didn't play 2 of my favourite songs ("1000 Miles" and "Eye For An Eye"), they still were the band of the day for me. What a great band they have become, with Erik being the perfect frontman. He is constantly on the move and his singing performance was great too. My brother and I had to laugh out loud, when he spit in the air and then catched his own spit with his mouth again, never seen that one before. Bass player Jimmy announced "Rebel Son", which H.E.A.T. played as a very fitting tribute to Jimi Jamison. Great that they did this. Besides "Rebel Son" my highlights were "Emergency" and "Living On The Run". Unfortunately they weren't allowed to play "Breaking The Silence" anymore, because I'm sure that would have been another highlight for me. It found it disappointing that H.E.A.T. had to cut their set short and I feel the stage times could have been better managed. Why not plan every band 15 minutes earlier and plan the last band to finish at 21.45, so you have some overlap and the headliner can always finish their set. A day later, my brother and I got the chance to take a picture with H.E.A.T. and they turned out to be very nice guys. Great band!
Saturday:
Rage Of Angels started the day and they were good. Highlights were "Through It All" and "Over And Over". I was hoping that Danny Vaughn would make an appearance to sing that last song (and then "Forever Young", but unfotunately not. It was nice to see From The Fire. The singer J.D. Kelly looks totally different now (who doesn't though) and his voice was still good. My hightlight was "Spark And Flame", which he sang with Issa. Then there was Boulevard. They started with "Dream On" and immediately it was clear we were going to see something very special. David Forbes was in great voice and the band was very tight, a very good band with an amazing singer. Highlights were "Lead Me On", "Far From Over" and "Crazy Life". My only disappointment was that they didn't play "Where Is The Love", which IMO would have been a much better closing song than "Never Give Up". Great show though and one of the best of the entire festival. I only saw the first 2 songs of Babylon AD and especially "When The Hammer Swings Down" sounded good. I was back for Pretty Maids and whilst they did a good job, I had hoped for a less heavy setlist. Unfortunately they didn't play "Hell On High Heels" and "Shot Of Love" and instead played many heavy songs. My hightlight was the fantastic "Drops Of Heaven", but some songs, like the closing "Future World", sounded too much like a wall of sound. I was never a fan of Black 'n Blue, so that was our meal break. I had high expectations of Firehouse, but hey were disappointing. Their start was pretty good, with "Shake And Tumble" and "All She Wrote", but the middle part of the set was very boring. We got a drum solo, a guitar solo and several very mediocre songs which were sung by the guitar player and the drummer. The end was good again, with "Overnight Sensation" and "Reach For The Sky" as highlights, but Firehouse was not worthy of their headliner status IMO.
Sunday:
Axxis did a good job as openers and I liked their heavy rock with catchy choruses. Highlights: "Living In A World" and "Kingdom Of The Night", the 2 closing songs. Guild Of Ages were next and they were very good. The band was very tight and the singer did a great job. The first songs didn't have great choruses, but already sounded pretty good. But then we got great songs as "Heat Of Emotion", "Silent Soldiers", "Everytime (I Close My Eyes)" and the fantastic "Through The Years". For me, one of the Top 5 bands of the weekend. It was nice to hear the classic Touch songs, but, besides Mark Mangold, we were looking at a cover band. I still liked hearing "When The Spirit Moves Me" and "Don't You Know What Love Is". Then my favourite band of the weekend, Brother Firetribe. A great band with an amazing setlist. Together with H.E.A.T. they got the best reaction from the crowd and deservedly so. Almost every song was a highlight for me, but if I had to pick 4 I would go with "Runaways", "For Better Of For Worse", "Heart Full Of Fire" and "I Am ROCK". Fantastic performance. After the show, the guitar player Emppu and the drummer didn't come to the signing session, which was disappointing. I only saw 4 songs of Coney Hatch and was disappointed that, like 3 years ago, they didn't play "That Ain't Love". For me that is their best song, but instead we got mediocre songs like "Monkey Bars" and "Fallen Angel". I did like "Girl Of Last Nights Dream" and "Devil's Deck" was a good closing number. I have never been a fan of Autograph and when I heard that their original singer Steve Plunkett would not be there, we knew this would be our meal break. We came back for Danger Danger and they did a great job closing the festival. Ted Poley And Bruno Ravel were funny as always and they have so many good songs, that there is never a bad Danger Danger show. Highlights were "Beat The Bullet", "Don't Blame It One Love" and "Naughty Naughty".but they didn't play 1 bad song. They closed the final Firefest with "Don't Stop Believing", which was a fitting end to this great festival.
My favourite bands of the weekend:
1. Brother Firetribe
2. H.E.A.T.
3. Boulevard
4. Guild Of Ages / C.I.T.A.
5. The Poodles
6. Danger Danger
7. Shy
I think it's very sad that this is the end of such a great festival. I visited Firefest 3 times and for me Firefest had become one of the highlights of my year. That already started with the announcement on ARFM, the build-up and then the actual Firefest weekend. I really hope, this has not been the last Firefest and that Firefest will be back in the near future. For now, I thank Kieran, Bruce and the rest of the crew for all the great memories.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/28/2014 10:27AM by juliocruz.