at THE RAVE in Milwaukee Wisconsin (USA)

September 22nd 2002

To my surprise Sentenced opened up the show.

Their first song was "Cross my heart and hope to die" the 2nd track on their new CD "The Cold White Light" (which I hope everyone who reads this has got that album by now!) I was mad that the crowd wasn't getting into it and I know Ville was mad also. Sentenced had such a flawless set it is unreal. I've personally been to a lot of shows and man, and this band was so good the words are indescribable. Maybe I'm a little biased, but I can tell you that it wasn't as loud as the other shows I've been to. Every note they played was done with complete perfection. This band should put out a live album. It's just too bad that the crowd wasn't getting into it. 

I know that if this show were in St. Paul, there would have been a pit. 

When Sentenced comes through Europe with Lacuna Coil, go see them if you haven't seen Sentenced live, their just amazing.

Dark Tranquility from the get go was more electronic based then the other bands and their the only band with a keyboard player. I could tell that the crowd liked DT a lot and that they were the more well known band. The band had a lot stage presence. The singer, was this thin man with long strawberry blond hair, you would never think he'd have the voice that he does. 

The band sounded very well; in the next few weeks I'll be getting one or two of their CD's. Highly Recommended

Kill Switch Engage, to be perfectly honest had the most energy on stage, but I sat to the side when they came on, because after Sentenced, the club's noise level was very loud, and to avoid hearing loss I sat to the side in an area where it wasn't so loud, but from what I heard, it wasn't too bad, it's worth a listen anyway. 

I was just curious as to why they were on the tour though. They didn't exactly fit in. 

Not in a negative way or anything, I would expect them to tour with Soulfly or Disturbed but not Inflames or DT. It's like seeing The Ramones with Poison. Well maybe not that extreme but you know what I mean.

In Flames. The band everyone came to see. 

Opened up with their usual "Bullet Ride" and the crowd went nuts as to be expected. Inflames played very well. They played a lot of their new material, not all in a row but one in-between classic Inflames songs. They played "Trigger", "Cloud Connected", "Black and White", "System", and I think "Drifter". I could tell the majority of the crowd didn't have the new album yet, but the ones who did (like me) sung along and went nuts. The funniest part of the show was when Anders, announced that they were going to play "System" and the band briefly hesitated and Anders just for a second looked over to Daniel to see when he's going to start the song, and right when he did it, turned his head from the mic, Daniel went into the songs, and Anders quickly turned his head and started singing, while Bjorn and Jesper are laughing at both ends of the stage, I guess you have to hear how that songs starts to get a laugh out of it. Inflames and Milwaukee have a lot of history and Anders spoke highly of Milwaukee and I guess I wasn't surprised that a lot of people did show up. Inflames put on a great show, if you havn't seen them, please go see them. 

This band is just fucking brutal. When this band comes to your town (assuming the people reading this are Europeans) with Soilwork and Pain, your getting the best Sweden has to offer. Have fun. 

our interview with In Flames