Live review: Crashdïet, The Cruel Intentions and Highride at Little Devil, Tilburg, The Netherlands, October 4th, 2019

On Friday October the 4th it was time for a Scandinavian evening in the Little Devil in Tilburg, The Netherlands. When reading about a Scandinavian evening your thoughts probably go towards black or death metal, but that surely isn’t the case tonight. Tonight it’s all about glam metal. The Swedes of Crashdïet are headlining and as supports they brought their fellow Swedes Highride and The Cruel Intentions, who are coming from neighboring country Norway.

It’s up to Highride to kick off this glam metal evening. That the looks of the musicians are an important aspect in glam metal is well-known. That’s also the case with Highride, especially with the chill-looking guitarist Mille Lithander with sun glasses, the enthusiastic frontman Peter Waljus and bass player Kriss Keyes, who is performing with his blouse half-open and a hat showing “Keyes”. Especially the last two mentioned are performing as true entertainers by having a lot of interaction with the audience and encouraging them. The stage is pretty small, because of the other bands’ instruments that are already there. So, Highride just has limited space on the stage that normally isn’t much bigger anyway. However, this doesn’t seem to be a problem. There is already a lot of energy coming off of the stage quite soon. Peter’s vocals are a bit soft in the mix at some moments, there is a bit of feedback to be heard sometimes and Peter’s microphone fell off its stand once, but that all doesn’t take anything away from this nice show. Highride delivers a very nice and quite energetic warm up show, with drummer Nicke Rosell taking care of a nice rhythm with his jumpy drums and Mille standing out with his roaring solo’s.

The Norwegians of The Cruel Intentions are continuing with the nice atmosphere that Highride opened with. This show also includes a nice rhythm based on jumpy drums, this time coming from The Cruel Intentions’ drummer Robin Nilsson. Guitarist Kristian Solhaug also continues with what his Swedish colleague of Highride started: playing nicely roaring solo’s. The Cruel Intentions’ frontman Lizzy Devine on the other hand has to deal with some technical problems. During their first songs the amp of his guitar doesn’t seem to work, which makes him decide to do something he has never done before in his quite long career: rocking on stage without a guitar. So, it’s a debut tonight, albeit not a planned one. However, it has no negative effect on his performance, showing that he is a true professional and entertainer. He isn’t on stage without a guitar very long though, because soon a new amp is brought to the stage, so that Lizzy can pick up his guitar again and rock the way he is used to. It’s already a bit busier in the venue during this show which, combined with the big amount of energy coming off of this show, results in a moshpit.

Then it’s time for the headliner of this evening, the second Swedish band of tonight, a band that is already showing that glam metal isn’t only an 80s thing since 2000: Crashdïet. Just as his aforementioned colleagues, drummer Eric Young also delivers nice jumpy drums taking care of the rhythm our ears are now longing to to go wild on, in this show more clearly combined with the nicely humming bass of Peter London, who’s handling that same jumpy pace. Guitarist Martin Sweet also delivers some very nicely roaring solo’s taking care of some extra wow-moments. However, who’s standing out the most during this show is frontman Gabriel Keys. He delivers his vocals in a very nicely executed way and shows to be a true entertainer, by clinging on to the lights rack and hanging over the audience, singing a part in the audience or crowdsurfing. Now it’s very crowded in the sold-out venue while the energy coming off of Crashdïet’s show is even more intense compared to the two earlier shows. That combination is resulting in an almost constantly moving moshpit, a lot of people jumping, shouting along, clapping along, a loud applause and a few crowdsurfers, it’s a true madhouse here tonight, of course in a positive way. The audience clearly is very enthusiastic, with a few people showing a bit more odd behavior. I am not going to write about this that much, because the band and the show are of course much more important and what you probably want to read about, both being very positive and nice. I am going to write a bit about one example though: how on earth can you decide to get your phone out of your pockets and start to film when Gabriel is crowdsurfing over you and the people holding him up in the air could use some extra hands? Fortunately this ended up well.

This evening on Friday October the 4th was a very nice Scandinavian glam metal evening in the Little Devil, with three very nice shows, with Crashdïet’s show being the cherry on the cake and clearly showing why they are tonight’s headliner. These three bands are showing that glam metal is still alive and kicking in 2019!

Crashdïet Official Website
Crashdïet Facebook
Crashdïet Instagram
Crashdïet Twitter
The Cruel Intentions Official Website
The Cruel Intentions Facebook
The Cruel Intentions Instagram
Highride Official Website
Highride Facebook
Highride Instagram