The Hellacopters – Gothenburg Culture Festival

Nicke Andersson of The Hellacopters. Photo: Jonas Gustafsson/CrowdSnapper

Action rockers The Hellacopters browsed through their discography and served the cream of their crop to the broad public, and made evident how well their new material stack up to their older hits.

Safe and Pleasant Selection of Songs

Playing at a public event, the crowd was potentially more diverse and mainstream than at a typical rock festival. Even though it would be funny to see them play Supershitty to the Max front to back, the 'copters took a safer approach and played most of their bigger tracks. This including a few early songs, like (Gotta Get Some Action) Now! off the debut, which ironically sounds a lot cleaner live than the old studio recording, and Soulseller from the second album, all the way up to singles off their latest effort Eyes of Oblivion.

The Y2K era Hellacopters is especially strong in my opinion, including the LPs High Visibility, and especially By the Grace of God. I'm probably a bit biased, as they would become my introduction to the band, but not only that, the late guitarist Robert Dahlqvist (a.k.a. Strängen/The String) who entered in 1999 and brought out a more melodic side of the band, moved it towards a more accessible and polished sound which they've stuck to since. Songs like Toys and Flavors as well as the title track to By the Grace of God with its instantly recognisable single note piano intro, are both mandatory live favourites to this day. Apart from those tracks, they also brought back the slightly mellower Rainy Days Revisited, which was a nice surprise.

Nicke Andersson taking a smoke.

Strong New Material

During their set it also struck me how well the singles Reap A Hurricane and the title track off the band's latest effort Eyes of Oblivion stacks up to their earlier work. Especially the latter song; Eyes of Oblivion, which feels like a modern classic with its memorable lead that kicks instantly grabs the attention and makes people reach for their phone cameras.

Skilled Dregen Replacement

The band lineup at the Gothenburg Culture Festival (Göteborgs Kulturkalas) featured a couple of new faces; including New Zealandic bassist Dolph de Borst, known from The Datsuns as well as Nicke Anderssons other band Imperial State Electric.

Original Hellacopters guitarist Dregen injured his hand in a car door on a tour in Spain last year. Guitarist Luis Gerardo "LG" Valeta from the Spanish rock band '77 came to rescue, and still covers for Dregen during his recovery. And even though I missed seeing Dregen, I've got to say, LG did a great job as a stand-in and paired up nicely with frontman Nicke Andersson.

While the guys at the front felt almost like a new band apart from Nicke Andersson, the backline was all the more familiar, with longtime members Anders "Boba Fett" Lindström on piano, and Robban Eriksson behind the drums.

Band Lineup

Nicke Andersson (Vocals, Guitar)
Luis Gerardo "LG" Valeta (Guitar)
Dolph de Borst (Bass)
Anders "Boba Fett" Lindström (Piano, Tambourine)
Robert "Robban" Eriksson (Drums)

The Datsuns bassist Dolph de Borst is one of the newer members of the band.

Spanish guitarist LG Valeta covering for Dregen.

Göteborgs Kulturkalas

The Gothenburg Culture Festival, or Kulturkalaset i Göteborg, now redubbed Göteborgs Kulturkalas, is a broad public event taking place every year in Gothenburg, Sweden, typically towards the end of the summer. This year, the festival took place from Thursday to Sunday, the last weekend of August. The Hellacopters was the closing act of the second day (Friday), playing from 21:30 to slightly before 23:00.

CrowdSnapper was there both Friday and Saturday, so a lot more shows will be added on the site, so make sure to follow our social feeds so you don't miss out!

Photographing the Event

CrowdSnapper managed to get a photo permit to the festival granting pit access to the main stage at Kungstorget, we like to extend our deepest gratitute for this to the management!

Shooting this show, I felt like I had some of the worst luck nailing the perfect shots, however. Nicke is known for his guitar moves, and it felt like I was always missing them, or at the wrong place at the wrong time, shooting. It was a challenging shoot, since it was pitch black in the pit with a lot of photographers to parry around, but it went just fine and I'm very glad I got the chance to shoot this great band!