H.E.A.T (Live)

at O2 Academy 2, Newcastle, U.K., May 17, 2014

Maybe it’s something in the water or perhaps the food, but whatever it is Sweden has produced more than their fair share of bands who have the knack of penning a catchy tune or two with Abba, Roxette, The Cardigans, Europe and not forgetting the incredible Hellacopters and Talisman right at the top of that list.

With their third album Tearing Down The Walls picking up plaudits from fans and critics alike, it looks as though H.E.A.T are well on their way to adding their name to that list so it was with great anticipation that Newcastle welcomed the Swedish Rockers to the O2 Academy for their first ever show in the City as part of their four date whistlestop UK tour.

Heat

True to their name H.E.A.T raised the temperature throughout their set with a performance packed with energy and passion with songs more catchy than the clap and more “woah, woahs!” than a boat load of Bon Jovi’s. In fact Bon Jovi is a decent reference point for H.E.A.T, certainly in their early days before they became cowboys and dreamt of becoming Bruce Springsteen.

Front man and former Swedish Idol winner Erik Gronwall was electric, literally, leaping wildly across the stage as if 10,000 volts had been shot through him. With charisma and personality oozing from every pore, Gronwall had the audience eating out of his hand while he shared their drinks.

Heat

With supercharged Rock anthems like Inferno and Breaking The Silence based on sky-scraping melodies and soaring choruses this was hard to resist. Mannequin Show drew from the same melodic well that Abba so successfully drank but backed with punchy guitars that surely Benny and Bjorn would love to have added to a song or two of theirs.

With a large turnout on a red hot Saturday night, it was uplifting to see that melodic Hard Rock can still pull in a healthy crowd but when the music is so energetic and infectious it’s not that hard to see why and Tearing Down The Walls may well be the album that propels H.E.A.T into arenas. All this for a miserly seven quid which can’t be bad.

Author

  • Mick Burgess

    Mick is a reviewer and photographer here at Metal Express Radio, based in the North-East of England. He first fell in love with music after hearing Jeff Wayne's spectacular The War of the Worlds in the cold winter of 1978. Then in the summer of '79 he discovered a copy of Kiss Alive II amongst his sister’s record collection, which literally blew him away! He then quickly found Van Halen I and Rainbow's Down To Earth, and he was well on the way to being rescued from Top 40 radio hell!   Over the ensuing years, he's enjoyed the Classic Rock music of Rush, Blue Oyster Cult, and Deep Purple; the AOR of Journey and Foreigner; the Pomp of Styx and Kansas; the Progressive Metal of Dream Theater, Queensrÿche, and Symphony X; the Goth Metal of Nightwish, Within Temptation, and Epica, and a whole host of other great bands that are too numerous to mention. When he's not listening to music, he watches Sunderland lose more football (soccer) matches than they win, and occasionally, if he has to, he goes to work as a property lawyer.

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