Metal Shock Finland are pleased to publish a review for ACCEPT ‘s performance at Sweden Rock Fest 2013 which is written by Jon Wilmenius (etainmentnewsreviews.wordpress.com).
First of all, Accept is not an nostalgia act. That’s been proven a few times over the years. I think we all was a bit sceptical when they decided to reunite without charismatic singer Udo Dirkschneider once again in 2010. The first time they tried that it ended with a disaster, but this time they didn’t change musically, they went with the classic Accept sound and a singer, Mark Tornillo, that was somewhat similar to Dirkschneider. I saw this line up live for the first time at Getway Rock in 2010 and they blew me away so hard it was actually hard to breathe. They sounded great, looked great and they had the damn time of their lives. With two great albums under their belt, Blood Of The Nations (2010) and Stalingrad (2012), it was expected that they weren’t about to play only the old classics live. Accept is a band, like Europe for instance, that has decided to move forward and not to live on past glories. And they both do it really damn well. The crowd for Accept’s gig this sunny evening were huge as in HUGE! In hindsight it’s really strange that the Rock Stage was the band’s home this evening. They could – and should – have played the Festival Stage because I don’t think that I have ever seen a bigger crowd around the Rock Stage area ever.

The band hit the stage with two new songs, “Hung, Drawn And Quarted” and “Hellfire” off their newest album and right there it stood clear that the new stuff goes down equally as well as their old classics. “Restless And Wild” followed and the crowd went berserk. The band really had the crowd in their hands and watching Wolf Hoffmann (lead guitar) and Peter Baltes (bass) is a true pleasure. They look so natural on stage and they really can’t stop smiling.

Mark Tornillo in his turn, fills the Udo shoes without any problem, fact is, we don’t miss Udo for a second. “Losers And Winners” (love the German accent in the backing vocals here – what’s ze metta…!!!) is a forgotten pearl off the Balls To The Wall album before “Stalingrad” kicks our asses and with “Breaker” following that we really never get any room to breathe. But who needs that? Instead we happily get ourselves seduced by the amazing “Shadow Soldiers” off the new album, that goes right into the angry “Bucket Full Of Hate” from Blood Of The Nations, before another lost gem, “Bulletproof” from their first reunion album Objection Overruled (1993) leaves us more breathless than ever. But it doesn’t end with that. “Pandemic” is a true live killer that takes us to “Princess Of The Dawn” and by now they have us singing by the top of our lungs and it feels like the whole place is moving with the crowd jumping around. “Up To The Limit” is the only song that feels a bit flat tonight, but when the intro to “Fast As A Shark” starts nobody cares about that and thousands of voices going all “hi-di-hi do-hi-da” over the intro tape. The song is still terribly fast and it is still furious and it is still brilliant. “Metal Heart” starts what can be described as an encore and the crowd goes nuts once more with the following “Teutonic Terror” showing everybody that their new stuff is as much as a must as their classics – what a brilliant tune! “Balls To The Wall” ends the whole thing and if there was a roof over our heads, it would have been tore down, if not earlier then by this one. Easily one of the best concerts on this year’s festival and by now no one can doubt that Accept are back as the real thing and not some guys travelling around playing classics for nostalgic reasons. If you’re an Accept fan and haven’t seen them live, then do so. This is real damn deal!

Check out the Youtube clip from the ACCEPT’s performance at Sweden Rock Fest below:

• The copy-right of this article belongs to Jon Wilmenius.
  ACCEPT photos by F. Duennhaupt