BULLET - Time To Rock 2025 (Festival Blog)

**This is my story. My personal journal account of time at the festival, my thoughts and feelings. This is not a technical review of gigs, but more of a story telling my experiences and activities of attending Time To Rock Festival 2025. Hopefully, this will help inspire your attendance in 2026. Feel free to reach out to me with any questions.**

It doesn’t matter that I’m an old man. It doesn’t matter that I’ve seen the band before. Even if I’ve already had the chance to photograph them before. I get excited when the gig is about to start, like a little kid. And even more so for Bullet, one of my favourite bands that I’ve been following for years. In 2012, I wrote a review blog about Bullet. They were a major reason behind my first attendance at Sweden Rock Festival in 2013. I’ve reviewed or blogged about the albums Full Pull, Storm Of Blades, Dust To Gold and Live as well as another gig at SRF in 2015. In 2024, I got to photograph them at Sweden Rock.

All that bouncing around my largely empty head and I was toe tapping and snapping photos for two songs before I realized that two songs had passed! Now what were they again…. hopefully setlist.fm can help! In any case, I also spent an inordinate amount of time and effort on capturing fireballs from the pyro in my lens. At least I had ample chances.

RIDIN’ HIGH AND TURNING IT UP LOUD

Song three and I settled in as the boys ripped through “Ridin’ High“. Guitarists Kenny and Hampus were putting on a wonderful display, meeting together on stage for choice photo ops. For “Turn It Up Loud“, I was out of the photo pit and into the crowd, thinking to myself that Dag Hell Hoffer sounds as evil as ever. The vocalist’s throaty snarl made me question if his almost certain demonic possession had come full force in a staged takeover. My fist high as they roared through one of my favourite Bullet anthems, Hampus sharing the mic with Hell and assisting on the choruses. Bassist Gustav Hector‘s full head of perm-like sandy blonde hair bouncing every which way as I shouted the chorus back to my heavy metal heroes.

“Rolling Home” was presented in an extended version ahead of a new song. The new song is introduced by way of a roaring motorcycle, “Kickstarter“. Which was fucking phenomenal. Can’t wait for this album to hit… I need the energy jolt in my life! The metal screaming crash that is “Storm of Blades” came before “Dusk Till Dawn“. A sea of crowd’s fists smashing the air now witnessed when scanning across the throng filling the stage front.

“Stay Wild” was a bit strange, unless I missed something here. It seemed that they lost power or some tech issue as the band teased up the audience and then the song erupted full force. I guess it was all part of the plan and I should pay better attention! Hampus took to centre stage near the close of the song. Kneeling down as he really poured himself into the solo, a young boy and presumably his father came out to help Hampus stand after the solo. I get it, I’m old too🤣. I believe the kid was from the band of 12-year-olds called Universe, I think. Anyway, I saw on the TTR FB page that these youngsters were giving a free concert tomorrow at a location very near the festival.

TWO HIGHWAYS

The recorded intro to “Highway Pirates” greeted the crowd next as the band came out on stage and flawlessly took over, launching the song. We were then served “Fuel The Fire” (which I like to sing to myself as “Shoes On Fire“, but that’s a weird camping story for another time) before another “highway” song, “Highway Love“. This second “highway” song, originally surfacing on the band’s latest album, 2018’s Dust To Gold, was extended considerably to include the band introductions. Obviously, everything was in Swedish, so I understood only when to cheer/clap….lol. The exception being during Hampus‘ spotlight, I heard the word “kyckling”, which is Swedish for chicken. They must be talking about his chicken farm. Have you seen that documentary video on YouTube?

The curtain was brought down on the show with the fist-pumping, headbanging anthem “Bite The Bullet“. The boys in Bullet received some assistance for this show closer as there were now three young boys on stage, presumably the rest of Universe, to sing the chorus lines. I should go see these shining examples of youth tomorrow morning. What a gig! Thank you, Bullet, for ripping a new asshole to Time To Rock on this opening day of 2025! Now, can I afford a trip to see Bullet in London and the UK coming up? Who wants to lend (give) me money?