OCTOBER 10th, 2024
PAIN: I AM ON TOUR
Review By: Dmitry Sukhinin
Photos By: Polina Kulikovskikh
Photo Gallery: http://www.metaltitans.com/concertpics/pain/

The amount of musical talent in Sweden is difficult to embrace. Sweden provides legions of great bands that make dents and send waves in the whole music industry influencing future generations. Some acts you just cannot (and should not) miss. I had not hesitated to see one of the legends of metal live once again, also combining it with the pleasure of going to Parkteatret. Parkteatret is a vintage club in the middle of Oslo downtown with a capacity of 500. Despite being renovated, it still has the charm of an old cinema built in 1907 and has some old props like wall lights from the last century (at least as they look like).

Shortly before the concert I discovered that there is a warm-up band called Metalite that I’ve never heard before, also from Sweden. I deliberately decided to check them out tonight and got a chance to make a fresh new discovery. The only thing I had managed to “experience” was a band picture that gave some idea about what Metalite’s sound could be. From the start the music mix had a dominance of drums, backtrack synths and fantastic, flawless vocals. Erica Ohlsson looks much more charismatic than on any of the band pictures and sounds very firm. The band had some basic pyros, however, managed to make their performance more spectacular. Throughout their set I was moving around the club trying to find a perfect spot for the mix (which normally should be right by the sound engineer), and initially concluded that the topology of Parkteatret seems to not cater for the needed sound: unfortunately, the guitars were quite thin (and not audible the first song - I have only heard some presence when Robert Örnesved’s solos start to cut through starting from the second composition). I also didn't hear any traces of bass due to drum and synth overpowering. Some moments I thought that I had found the "perfect spot," but the bass sound was much more simple than what Robert Majd was playing. Despite this, the band performance was absolutely rad. I once again note the marvelous vocal performance and charisma of the singer, great groove and challenging solos, I only wish the mix would have done them justice. Metalite enjoyed themselves on stage and look very engaged, also refreshing to see.

I’ve seen Pain once before, - it was back in 2007 in Siberia, at now defunct Novosibirsk club called Rock City, which had slightly bigger capacity compared to Parkteatret, and it was totally packed back then. Parkteatret was not too packed, but it was a good attendance for a Thursday night. Today Pain has a much bigger setup with lights, visuals and the show itself was much more diverse, including the set list. Just like in 2007, Pain started with “The Same Old Song”, which is a perfect opener. I instantly figured out it was not the club to be blamed for the opener’s sound - Pain sounded massive right from the beginning. Peter and crew really do have an idea how to sound great - punchy guitars where you can hear every note, every strike and all the nuances, massive groovy bass and huge drums. It is also awesome to see Sebastian Tägtgren, Peter’s son, pounding the skins in dad’s band (a transparent drum kit with light stripes!) - a dream come true for many parents who are into music.

Coming back to the show itself, it by far exceeded my expectations. A great and long setlist that contained all the usual suspects - Pain’s main hits ("On and On", "End of the Line", you name it.. and if you know Pain, you know what their last song was) plus, some of the new stuff, which is very good live. Despite having more diverse material than in 2007, they somehow sounded much heavier (and the show contained a lot of headbanging and hair windmills). I only wish they had played "Dirty Woman", maybe next time (Fingers crossed). The band pretended they screwed up one song stopping in the middle (with a perfectly orchestrated drum fill), had some chat and then casually resumed playing, which was fun to see (note that they have backtrack with synths, - you cannot just start and stop and make it flawless). Pain had a couple of image changes during the set including Peter dressing as Raoul Duke (c'mon, you have watched and read "Fear And Loathing in Las Vegas," haven’t you?), then "Party In My Head" with kicking of inflatable balls for the pool to the audience (perhaps that’s the thing why we love Swedish metal so much - dance elements are even in metal!), Sebastian Svalland’s plush guitar, fur coats, a country cowboy song with a scaled down drum kit and acoustic guitar (!!) and then a couple of old usual suspects to nail it returning back to high gain groove. Everyone had this ringtone on their phone in the 2000's, and "Shut your Mouth" was of course, the final song; some lost alien came onstage to greet the audience while the musicians were playing their closing song.

I have already mentioned how absolutely perfect the sound mix was, but big kudos from me go to the light engineers and how well-thought the lights were despite the relatively small club, - it was an amazing watch and light changes supported the songs’ structure, including different color palettes on musicians during different riffs and vocal types.