DVBeer’s Review: Triumph/Live At Sweden Rock Festival(2008)

Welcome Friend’s To  A New Series Called  dEke’s and T’s DVBeers Review! The Mission Statement was basically to Drink Great Local Beer(Sleeping Giant Ale was the choice this night) and to watch and critique a couple of Music DVD’s…So sit back and get ready to enter the Rock N Roll Machine….

So Triumph basically hit the skids Professionally and Creatively   around late 1988 or so. Triumph played a local show in their hometown of Toronto and right after it Guitarist Rik Emmett said Adios to Drummer Gil Moore and Bassist Mike Levine.

But when the Canadian RocK N Roll Hall Of Fame in 2008 was going to induct Triumph(20 years since Emmett spoke to Moore/Levine) the olive branch was reached out and the boy’s worked out whatever they had  to work out and decided to give it a go with two shows. Sweden and Oklahoma(WHUT?) were the two spots chosen and so a few years later here comes theAudio CD/ DVD set of the Sweden show and were off!

Now to be honest with you’s out there. I used to pile up all new band releases first on VHS years ago than DVD but over the last 5-6 years everything ends up on you tube so I will buy a band’s audio release but the DVD’s I will pass on…. Still have a lot  kicking around so when I went over to Tbone’s one Friday night this past October I decided to rummage through the Rock Box and pull out some stuff that I haven’t watched in a while and to be honest and like I told T. I only watched this Triumph DVD maybe once as I ripped the audio disc to my iPod  and never looked back!

Ladies An Gents: The Reviewers…

Deke- C.E.O  of Stick It In Your Ear/and at Tbone’s In charge of Music and Operating the DVD Player….

TBONE-Pouring Beers/Providing Chips N Peanuts and Verbally Chirping One Liners….

Reviews Done at TBone’s Wickedly Awesome  Cool Bar!

The Songs Of Triumph..

TRIUMPH
“Live At Sweden Rock Festival”
(TML Entertainment, Inc./UMG)

01. When The Lights Go Down
02. Lay It On The Line
03. Allied Forces
04. Never Surrender
05. I Live For The Weekend
06. Blinding Light Show
07. Rocky Mountain Way
08. Magic Power
09. Rock And Roll Machine
10. Fight The Good Fight

So we get a 10 pack of Triumph’s Tunes….

Check out opener When The Lights Go Down. Man ya gotta love Levine’s Cliche Rock One Liner’s towards the end of the song. Haha!

When The Lights Go Down is a great track! Always has been and always will be and Triumph is off a running and the first thing Tbone says is “Emmett and Gil look pretty good still ,but Mike Levine looked old in the 80s and still looks old now!” Bam! First shot fired! We had a good laugh and Tbone poured more Beer …. Still though it’s great to hear Triumph! Like bumping into a long-lost friend and catching up about the good ol daze!

The Boy’s mess with us as they do this jam out before launching into Lay It On The Line and once the tune hits the chorus I mention that the guitars (courtesy of Emmett and second stringer Dave Dunlop) have a crunch, a bite to them. Tbone nods in agreement! We also have a chat about how unforgettable the Sport Of Kings album was and how it torpedoed Triumph from cool rock act to AOR Fodder!

Allied Forces is an audio assault on the ears and Triumph rolls up and once again tell’s us that “Rock Troops Are On The Move”. Tbone  mentions that “Emmett always had the radio tailored voice whereas Moore had the Street Rock Type vocal” Agreed! Emmett launches off during the solo and Tbone pops a Music Boner over how  clean the appearance of Emmett’s Guitar’s look while Levine plays the same looking ragged bass the whole show….

My ear’s are blown! T pours yet more beer!

Never Surrender brings us back to 1983 when Tbone bought the vinyl copy of said album. Like I said in some of my other Triumph reviews I still never bought this album as I would steal T’s copy!

I Live For The Weekend.  Tbone added “an ZZ Top like shuffle during the verses” Yup sir you are correct and this leads to another discussion of up until about 10 years ago I only had heard this on the 8 Track of the album Progression Of Power release which Tbone owned. We laughed at just how old we are! I also tossed out that this was the tour that Triumph last played Tbay(Fall of 1980)

Want Prog Triumph? Look no further folks than Blinding Light Show. Rik straps on the White Double Neck Gibson and sings for his supper on this tune. I mentioned that this was indeed Proggy Triumph where Tbone chimed in “had to suck for Triumph coming from Toronto and always  getting compared to Rush. Like they could have come from Winnipeg and the comparison would have not been as huge” No shit …Being a three-piece and coming out of Toronto how are you not going to be compared? If Triumph came out of Houston? People would have compared the 3 piece of Triumph to ZZ Top! Ha…imagine Levine with a long ass beard? Anyways this is a classic tune and full props  and bonus points to Gil for slamming that big assed Gong behind him!

Tbone right away states “Joe Walsh must have loved these guys” and why not Rocky Mountain Way is almost a Triumph original. This is a great version and Gil once again sings a good tune and the mix of this song is Big N Beefy! Joe made a ton of dough from Royalties!

T pours another round of Suds and were past midnight and now it’s time for the Rock N Roll Machine which is another great track which features a walloping guitar solo by Emmett and the dude can play man! One of the most underappreciated players in the game if you ask me. Kinda cool how they after Rik’s solo lay off the gas pedal and slow the song down to a bluesy like crawl…..The intro’s and outro’s on these song’s are changed up to keep us guessing. Well done you old buggers!

Fight The Good Fight is on the biggie tracks here in the catalog of Triumph. TBone sums it up best “Rik always would sing about finding the positives of life” and of course we revert back to Sport Of Kings with the big single Somebody’s Out There and of course I have to mention ” Geezus if Gil comes out from behind his drum kit to sing Just One Night I’m gonna lose it!” Course this never happened but it’s fun at times to be a Jackass! Tons of Ripping guitars/Big Drums/ and ummm Mike Levine! By the way we commented at least a dozen times about the Swedish National Hockey Team Jersey Mike was sporting with Mats Sundin #13 on the back.

Live At Sweden Rock is a great add to the collection. Course they could have added more tunes (the brilliant Thunder 7 album was totally skipped) but these guys like playing 10 minute tunes so hey that’s their deal and like most live releases perhaps a tweak or 3 was done in the studio but for myself and Tbone who gives a Shit? Triumph puts out product once in a Blue Moon so us Old Schooler’s are happy!

Thanks for reading along ….

Watch down the road for future DVBeers Reviews……