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Metal Bands Accused Of Rocking Too Loudly At SWEDEN ROCK FESTIVAL

weden Rock Festival wants to penalize several bands — including German power metallers RAGE and Swedish stoner rockers WITCHCRAFT — for playing too loudly!

The festival is being fined 250,000 SEK (around $35,000) by Swedish authorities for noise ordinance violations. According to a report in Aftonbladet, Sweden's largest daily newspaper, Sweden Rock Festival does not want to pay the fine. Instead, it blames five of the acts that played the festival on June 3-6, 2009 in Sölvesborg for violating noise laws during their shows. The groups in question are RAGE, OUTLAWS, WITCHCRAFT, HYSTERICA and TRACE NINE. The festival is considering dumping the fines on the bands, claiming the acts are responsible for the infractions, since they all have their own sound engineers.

WITCHCRAFT's frontman, Magnus Pelander, disputes this. He says his band does not have a soundman and instead used the one that was provided by the festival.

Each band would be fined 50,000 SEK — a approximately $7,000.

"We are not multimillionaires", Pelander told Aftonbladet, saying the fine will pose a great financial burden on the group.

WITCHCRAFT is four-piece, which means that the group would be responsible for paying out nearly $2,000 per band member if such a fine were to be imposed upon them.

Since I am from sweden I now after 3 years of this law welcome it warmly since it has changed the music. Concerts being loud as hell and you can barely hear whats being played wasnt too unusual before but now most concerts I go to have really good sound since the technicians can't "fix" bad sound by turning the volume up, they just have to get their bands a good sound from the beginning.

comparison is Megadeth at sweden rock 2005, a good concert but so loud we had to use both earplugs and our hands to not get damaged. There was no chance of listening to the perfectly played songs since it was all drowned in bassdrums and extremely loud guitars. I now saw them in malmö arena during spring 2009 and it was an amazing concert with excellent sound where I could hear everything perfectly without using earplugs at all. I didn't even have the usual "beeeeeeeeep" in my ears the day after =)

Arkash wrote:WHAT THE MOTHERUFUCKING FUCK? SCREW THE FUCK OF THEM!

Since I am from sweden I now after 3 years of this law welcome it warmly since it has changed the music. Concerts being loud as hell and you can barely hear whats being played wasnt too unusual before but now most concerts I go to have really good sound since the technicians can't "fix" bad sound by turning the volume up, they just have to get their bands a good sound from the beginning.

comparison is Megadeth at sweden rock 2005, a good concert but so loud we had to use both earplugs and our hands to not get damaged. There was no chance of listening to the perfectly played songs since it was all drowned in bassdrums and extremely loud guitars. I now saw them in malmö arena during spring 2009 and it was an amazing concert with excellent sound where I could hear everything perfectly without using earplugs at all. I didn't even have the usual "beeeeeeeeep" in my ears the day after =)

You are right, but it's fucking stupid to make thrm pay so much, they will destroy the bands doing that, and it's what people want!

Ragehead91 wrote:Picture what would happen if the citizens of Wacken would be that pissy and throw hissy fits when the music gets too loud.

Ikola wrote:Since I am from sweden I now after 3 years of this law welcome it warmly since it has changed the music. Concerts being loud as hell and you can barely hear whats being played wasnt too unusual before but now most concerts I go to have really good sound since the technicians can't "fix" bad sound by turning the volume up, they just have to get their bands a good sound from the beginning.

comparison is Megadeth at sweden rock 2005, a good concert but so loud we had to use both earplugs and our hands to not get damaged. There was no chance of listening to the perfectly played songs since it was all drowned in bassdrums and extremely loud guitars. I now saw them in malmö arena during spring 2009 and it was an amazing concert with excellent sound where I could hear everything perfectly without using earplugs at all. I didn't even have the usual "beeeeeeeeep" in my ears the day after =)


Since many ppl seem to think that playing outside should make you be able to have a higher volume due to loss in volume due to winds etc. Well, you don't need to if you use the kind of systems they had at sonisphere festival this summer in hultsfred. Amazing sound with speakers at several locations in the crowd. Really amazing stuff making my ears happy while still hearing everything loud enough.

I personally hate going to a concert and only being able to hear the bass/bassdrums. I simply can't see any point in it (unless your band is called Manowar). I think most bands are still some 20-30 dB short of playing with too little volume.

But are there as many people living near getting irritated than there is audience? Someone should count all of them...

Ikola wrote:It's not about the ppl living close by, it's about protecting the audience's hearing or something like that. Since it's allowed for all ages the government is really picky about the soundlevels.

Forssman's statement regarding the matter reads as follows:

"I just wanted to let you know that the Aftonbladet story [the Blabbermouth.Net article was] referring to is wrong. The reporter did an interview with me but misunderstood a few things and drew his own conclusions.

"First of all, the fine has not gone through yet, and it is far from certain that it will. Secondly, not all the mentioned bands were using their own sound technicians (all bands and technicians were however informed of the rules and there was measuring equipment at all the mixing towers). Naturally, whatever happens, we will not hold bands who did not bring their own sound techs responsible for those violations.

"Swedish authorities allow a 97 dB average with 110 dB peaks on events that are open to children under 13 - such as the Sweden Rock Festival. Unfortunately, measuring sound levels is not as exact as measuring speed or temperature since they are greatly affected by wind, air humidity etc. We hope this will be taken into consideration when the final decision regarding the fines is made."