Together with Swedish openings act Violent Silence, Norwegian Magic Pie and Swedish act A.C.T., Ricocher showed their skills on Saturday, August 13th 2005 in Slottskogen-Göteborg at the Slottskogen goes progressive festival.

An impression.

Friday, August 12th 2005

We leave early in the morning in a bus to Sweden and get there late in the evening where speaker Daniel is waiting for us. He wishes us welcome etc. and shows our rooms.

Then we’re getting to the place where the festival is being held to store our equipment. “Organiser” Mikael supports us. This year the festival is being held in another part of the park of Slottskogen: despite there is no light and P.A. yet, we’re getting an idea of how/what it could be like. Mikael compares the festival a bit like Woodstock, because the audience is not only hanging near the stage but also in the park around to listen to all bands. After having a shower we’re moving into the centre of Göteborg to check all stories about the beautiful Swedish girls/women !

Saturday, August 13th 2005

After some hanging in the centre of Göteborg, we need to go to the festival for a sound check etc. When we arrive, A.C.T is just sound checking and it bites!! The sound engineer gladly knows how to handle the equipment !

Suddenly we see people wearing Ricocher-shirts ……………….they are of our die-hard fans all the way form Holland on a trip to Sweden to see our performance !! Wow, Bartje and Willem, great that you did that for us: we know you enjoyed the show very much !

Of course, all sound checking takes more time as planned, but we get used to it and stay calm. Where others need time to get things on stage and do a sound check, we’re finished in a half hour and a half song-sound check We’re convinced that we will succeed here.

Violent Silence is still sound checking at the moment that the festival officially would start.

Meanwhile our art-man “Mattias Norèn” arrived and at last we can speak live instead of sending e-mails.

It’s 16.30 when Violent Silence starts to play. About 200-300 people are listening, but later on about 500-600 are there. Violent Silence can’t convince us: It all depends merely on drums and bass-player, the keyboards and voice need progression. But we know from our own experience that you need to play a lot on different stages to grow further as musicians.

After 45 minutes we’re on. The drumbeat of “Point of no return” starts and we’ll see that the audience is very curious what we, Dutch guys, will bring. After a swinging Daniel on the sounds of “Your Pride” (CD: Quest for the Heartland) the people are getting excited about our music. More and more people getting nearer the stage to get a better listen.

We play about all our songs from our CD Chains: the two three-parters on this CD were the best. We get a warm applause after these songs. After “Bitter Tears” we play one of our favourites “Haunted by Dreams” (CD: Cathedral of Emotions) and the crowd is really getting crazy.  At the end of this song they won’t stop with their applause: we ‘re impressed by ourselves and the audience by this.

While we just play for an hour  we get to our last song: “Breaking the Chain”: after this song we get a standing ovation and Daniël asks us for two times to do an extra song. We play “Fugitive” and leaving the stage while the audience keeps on clapping their hands. What an experience !

As we remove our gear off stage lots of people want their bought CDs to be signed: so we  get a signing-session. For sudden the Dutch guys are well known proggers in Slottskogen !

Then it’s up to Magic Pie: we hear some convincing songs but we take a time-out in our dressing room.

Finally A.C.T. is on stage and the crowd is really going mad: all people want to get in front and see everything. This is the band most people wanted to see. A.C.T. is playing easy: you see that they have a lot of experience to do a performance. Most people know their songs and swing and sing it out. We’re listening to it with great pleasure.

After all shows we make friends with A.C.T. and their manager and change compliments and promises to keep in touch. We give Mattias Norèn his promised Bavaria-beer (from Holland), drink a few more and getting in bed very late!

Sunday, August 14th 2005

In the morning we have to leave early because some us have to work on Monday (being an artist and an employer is sometimes hard !!). After u huge breakfast we’re getting into our bus and get home in Brabant in the middle of the night.

This trip was certainly worth  to go back another time !!