EVENT: Malmö Melodic Festival July 25th – 27th 2025
VENUE: Plan B, Malmö
WORDS: MetalMike71
PHOTOS: Brian Ronald
DATE: Day 1 – July 25, 2025
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This festival was held at Plan B in Malmö during three days with a pre-party on Thursday for the VIP. At the VIP party, the band GAELERI played and I heard that they were great. Although I had a VIP ticket, I could not attend the pre-party and I even missed the first round of the bands that played on Friday because I was still at work.
The bands I missed out on were State Of Salazar, Arctic Rain and Cruzh. (*Brian‘s photo galleries for these bands appear at the bottom of the blog).
7TH CRYSTAL
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I got there in time to see 7th Crystal. They are a great band and their sound becomes really heavy when they play live compared to their albums, but still very melodic. Unfortunately, the sound was not so good to start with and I thought the singer Kristian Fyhr had to struggle with his voice a bit.
They are a great live band and look great together on stage. They played thirteen songs and I really liked to hear “Blinded By The Light“, “So Beautiful“, “Higher Ground” and “Wonderland“. The audience seemed to like it a lot.
BAD HABIT
Bad Habit from Malmö was up next and they do not play that often anymore, so everybody seemed eager to see them live. As there were people from over 20 different countries around the world, I assume that there were people who had never seen them before. Bad Habit goes back to the mid-80s and has shifted sound many times, but always delivered music with strong hooks and choruses. They had a great sound and were really tight, even if they had to change a guitarist not long before the show.
They ran through thirteen songs from their albums and they started in recent times and went back in time for every song. The band seemed really happy to be on stage and the guitar player, Hal Marabel, had a big smile on his face all the time. The audience was enjoying the show and sang along to many of the songs. The best songs for me were “Everytime You Cry“, “Breaking My Chains“, “Another Night“, “In The Heat Of The Night” and “Rowena“.
FM
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It was a really hot weekend in Malmö and it was even hotter inside the venue and almost every band talked about it on stage. The heat was now also at top in the audience as it was time for the first night headliner, FM from the UK. They need no introduction if you listen to melodic rock/AOR. They have been around since the mid-80s and had a pause for about 13 years. Now they have been playing since the early 2000s again and have released many albums. There have been good ones and not so good ones among them, but they have plenty of songs to choose from when they play live.
They started the show with “Digging Up The Dirt“, which has a stomping rhythm and a bluesy feeling to it. The audience now got wild and everyone in the room was clapping their hands and singing their lungs out to every song during their set. What an amazing voice Steve Overland still has after so many years. He is one of the greatest singers in my book with such a soul and feeling.
They played an 18-song set and they were drenched in sweat after the first song, but did not care. They just played on a great set. Their first album, Indiscreet, is a classic amongst the AOR fans and they played some of the songs like “I Belong To The Night“, “Hot Wired“, “That Girl” and “Other Side Of Midnight“.
They almost played the whole album Tough It Out as well, so the setlist was amazing.
This was an awesome performance from an awesome classic band and I had no voice left after the show. Day 1 was now over and what a great start to the weekend, even if I missed a couple of great bands at the start.
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Check out more of MetalMike71‘s articles on CGCM Rock Radio/Website: MetalMike71
Check out more of Brian Ronald‘s articles and photo galleries on CGCM Rock Radio/Website: Brian Ronald
