All photos by Kristian Singh-Nergård
The Festival
This was the first edition of the Trondheim Rock Festival in Norway. The festival only lasted for one day, but the goal is to make the festival an annual event, and when it’s well established, the festival will last for 2-3 days and will take place at several venues in Trondheim. This year the festival had only one stage and the venue was Lerkendal Stadion (the home of Norway’s greatest soccer team Rosenborg BK) and 15,000 tickets were for sale. As the festival began, the tickets were completely sold out. There were some administrative troubles though, like people complaining on missing out on the music because they had to spend two hours in line to buy beer. It makes one wonder if people were there for the music or the beer! Ozzy Osbourne was this year’s headliner and gave the crowd a great Heavy Metal evening along with Black Label Society and TNT.
Black Label Society
The first band to appear on the stage was Black Label Society. Black Label Society is currently the warm-up band for Ozzy Osbourne on this tour, and was therefore a natural booking choice for the festival.
A great banner with Black Label Society’s logo was placed in front of the stage and fell down as the piano intro from “New Religion” (off their 2006 release Shot To Hell) shifted into a heavy guitar riff as the band started playing. “New Religion” was followed by “Been A Long Time” from Mafia (2005). Black Label Society sounded great and the crowd seemed to be well into it too. Zakk Wylde seemed to have a great time and enjoyed himself on stage. His voice sounded great too and the guitar solos were spot-on.
Zakk continued the show with a guitar solo intro to “Suffering Overdue.” With three songs from last year’s release, Shot To Hell, and the rest from great Black Label Society classics like “Suicide Messiah,” “Fire It Up,” and “Stillborn” (though without Ozzy on stage) made the set a dream come true for Black Label Society fans. The 45-minute long set functioned more as a warm-up for the two remaining bands than a full-length concert, but that seemed to be the intention.
Black Label Society’s setlist:
• New Religion
• Been A Long Time
• Suffering Overdue
• Bleed For Me
• Suicide Messiah
• Fire It Up
• Black Mass Reverends
• Concrete Jungle
• Stillborn
TNT
Next was Norwegian Hard Rockers TNT. They started their set with “Invisible Noise” from their 2004 release My Religion and continued with “Something Special” from their latest release The New Territory (2007). The band seemed in great shape and sounded even tighter than they did on the first tour with Tony Mills on vocals. As they played such classic TNT songs like “As Far As The Eye Can See” and “Intuition,” it became clear that Mills doesn’t lack the high-pitched voice of Tony Harnell as some people thought before the concert. He seemed steadfast and fit the band like a glove. It was like this line-up had played together since the start in 1982, even though The New Territory was the first TNT studio album for both bass player Victor Borge and vocalist Tony Mills.
There was also room for an instrumental in the middle of the set that allowed guitarist Ronni Le Tekrø to show his incredible guitar abilities. He played some amazing solos over the steady bass/drum/keyboard section. This is more proof about how tight the band has become, because they were simply enjoying themselves onstage.
With only four “new” songs (meaning released after 2003) in the set, and the rest consisting of good old classics, this made for an evening of sing-a-longs. Songs like “10 000 Lovers,” “Harley Davidson,” and “Everyone’s A Star” made the crowd go wild.
After about an hour of playing, Mills informed that they’d got a couple of extra minutes before Ozzy was ready, so they played a medley consisting of “Listen To Your Heart” and “Break The Ice” before pleasing the audience further with “Seven Seas,” yet another sing-a-long. What a set list and what a way to celebrate their 25th anniversary as a band!
TNT’s setlist:
• Invisible Noise
• Something Special
• As Far As The Eye Can See
• Downhill Racer
• A Constitution
• Caught Between The Tigers
• Instrumental
• My Religion
• Everyone’s A Star
• Intuition
• Harley Davidson
• 10 000 Lovers
• Listen To Your Heart/Break The Ice (Medley)
• Seven Seas
Ozzy Osbourne
A short while after TNT ended their set, the audio excerpt from “Carmina Burana” was played and resounded all over the stadium. Suddenly Ozzy was shouting from backstage for the crowd to make some noise, and as Ozzy entered the stage the audience went crazy. They opened the set with “Bark At The Moon,” and “Mr. Crowley” followed. Ozzy seemed to be a quite different person from what most people are used to on his reality show The Osbournes. He was energetic and seemed to have a great time, jumping and headbanging on stage and even pouring water on the people in front several times during the concert.
“Not Going Away” from Ozzy’s newest release Black Rain (2007) was next and it sounded great. Ozzy had some trouble reaching the high notes at times, but with a legend like Ozzy you forgive and forget, and the audience didn’t seem to mind at all.
A brilliant version of “War Pigs” from the Black Sabbath era followed, and with a back catalog like Ozzy’s, you can’t avoid songs like “Believer” and “Suicide Solution.” As “Suicide Solution” ended, Zakk Wylde was left alone on the stage. Unfortunately, the guitar solo spot didn’t fit the rest of the set. It mostly consisted of squeals and overtones, and after a little while, it all became boring. Quite a shame, because everyone knows Zakk can do so much better. He ended the solo in a cool way though, playing the guitar behind his head and also with his teeth. As the solo spot ended, Ozzy entered the stage again. Now he was dressed in the local soccer team Rosenborg’s home shirt, a Viking helmet and a fake beard. As Zakk noticed him he almost fell over by laughter.
“No More Tears” turned out to be a crowd pleaser and Ozzy had everyone sing along on the chorus. To the crowd’s rapturousness, Ozzy proclaimed that Norway’s a nice country and that he might buy a f***ing house here. “You guys need a little Ozzy here, right?”
After the song he told the audience that “if you go extra, extra crazy we might do four more songs!” The crowd did just that and the band started playing “I Don’t Want To Change The World.” Thereafter the band left the stage, leaving the crowd screaming for more. Ozzy shouted for the audience to be louder from backstage and entered for the encore of three songs. “Mama, I’m Coming Home” had the stadium singing louder than the band, while “Crazy Train” seemed long-awaited by the crowd.
As Ozzy introduced his band to the crowd, keyboardist Adam Wakeman was introduced as Adam Wankman! This caused Wakeman to break out in laugher.
Afterwards Ozzy had the crowd shouting: “One more song, one more song …” and he then responded to the rest of the band “Well, take it away then …”
“Paranoid” is, of course, the only way to end an Ozzy concert, and this one was no different. There was no doubt that Ozzy was the king of Trondheim this evening, and everyone is already looking forward to next year’s edition of Trondheim Rock Festival.
Ozzy Osbourne’s setlist:
• Bark At The Moon
• Mr. Crowley
• Not Going Away
• War Pigs
• Believer
• Road To Nowhere
• Suicide Solution
• Guitar solo
• I Don’t Know
• Here For You
• No More Tears
• I Don’t Want To Change The World
• Mama, I’m Coming Home
• Crazy Train
• Paranoid
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