Review by Desleigh Bycroft
Photos by Sarah Gilpin Photography
It’s Thursday night in Brisbane and I’m off to the Crowbar to see Swedish rock band H.E.A.T with my trusty photographer Sarah.
First support of three bands is BIG RED FIRE TRUCK, a rock band based in Manly, Sydney and fronted by DIGBY ROBINSON of FURNACE AND THE FUNDAMENTALS. They warmed up the crowd with a half hour set of good old 70’s and 80’s influenced hard rockers. Aussie style.
DIGBY burst out onto the stage in hot pink and black Lycra and a long white fur coat- a nod to his love of wrestling – and the crowd loved it. Local musicianNick Casalini was on bass duties and any band he is in seems to be a winner. Great lead guitar work and punchy drumming rounded out the set.
Next up was CATALANO, fronted by ROXXI CATALANO. It was an energetic start to this local bands set of hard rocking/glam/sleaze 80’s style rock which seems to be the flavour for tonight’s line up. Front man ROXXI has a good hard rockers edge to his vocals. The guitarist gave an energetic performance and despite some technical difficulties, delivered some great melodic finger tapping and harmonic squeals from his Ibanez.
H.E.A.T, the legendary Swedish, 80’s influenced, melodic hard rock band are visiting Australia for the first time since 2022. Fronted by their original singer KENNY LECKREMO, the band is keeping 80’s Scandanavian heavy rock/metal alive with their anthemic, fist pumping songs that had the whole crowd singing along.
From the moment they walked on stage, H.E.A.T had the crowd ready to rock. KENNY, leather clad complete with studded belts and heavy chains and the longest hair, prowled the stage like a rock god and took the crowd back to a time where they sang into their hairbrush and played air guitar in their bedroom.
Starting hard and fast with DISASTER, this fast paced rock anthem had the crowd singing and fists pumping from the opening notes. We all knew we were in for something special and that was proved as
ROCK YOUR BODY, with it’s 4/4 time signature from DON CRASH on drums, had everyone rocking their body and chanting the words. Cheesy 80’s? Sure, but not the soft brie… this was more hard cheddar and we loved it!
H.E.A.T followed up with DANGEROUS GROUND, HOLLYWOOD, and RISE– a song of empowerment, being true to yourself and standing up for what you believe in… A life lesson thru music. The night continued with tracks NATIONWIDE, REDEFINED, SET ME ON FIRE and BEG BEG BEG, but now it was time for the drum solo so everyone left the stage except for CRASH.
Crash proudly proclaimed he was having a blast but needed help singing an ancient Viking song, thousands of years old and everyone chanted along until he stood up and sang “we all love the drummer” as he pointed to himself. And there wasn’t one person who thought him wrong.
The songs were taken from several of H.E.A.T‘s albums, and although they had that energetic, fun and sometimes glam rock stage presence, their songs do have messages of strength and self awareness and other life experiences – but without that heaviness a lot of bands impart.
Into the home stretch sadly and I think I am speaking for everybody in the crowd by saying we don’t want this night to end. BACK TO THE RHYTHM, RUNNING TO YOU, LIVING ON THE RUN, 1000 MILES, and ONE BY ONE followed before we came to the final song and reality dawned that a fantastic night of live entertainment was about to come to an end.
But not before we were treated to WELCOME TO THE FUTURE... a future in the 80’s. The whole set was a winner, with wave after wave of high energy, powerful tracks with soaring vocals and anthemic songs- all well written and performed by one of Sweden’s greatest ever bands.
