Line Up: Jeff Scott Soto - Vocals , Marcel Jacob - Bass , Howie Simon and Freddie Åkesson - Guitars, Jamie Borger - Drums

Talisman has been a well known name for many years now and was one of the groups that were successful around the world during the late 80-ies and early 90-ies. The Club Mondo (CD 1) gig contains 17 tracks and the CD with the festival tracks contains 10.

A different thing is that all tracks from Sweden Rock Festival gig can already be heard on CD 1. Okay, it’s two different gigs, one outdoor and one indoor but I think it’s a little bit strange that none of the festival tracks have the privilege to be unique on the record. The material that is performed on the records is mostly from the latest albums and of a funkier character.

All members are from Sweden accepting for the vocalist, Jeff Scott Soto. Soto is a well known and appreciated by many, he sings with a clean and precise voice. This is the first time I hear him sing live and he mange to fulfil his duty in a very good way. He really let it loose in “In Make Believe” and shows that it is on the stage he belongs when he doesn’t recording CDs. The record also includes two covers, “Crazy” (Seal) and “Scream Of Anger” (Europe), both of them well performed.

The festival gig on CD 2 contains as I earlier said tracks that already can be heard on CD 1. The effort is almost the same and the performance through the record is high. The sound quality is on the other hand a bit lower, but that’s nothing that disturbs me.

This is all in all a good live record with many good songs, musical skills, sound quality and a Talisman in good mood. Live records are often dedicated to fans already well known of the group, but this can also be a record funny to have as a memory if you want to awake some memories from Sweden Rock Festival 2003. CD 2 can also be seen as a shorter version of the first one.

So if you don’t have time or lust to listen to 17 songs, just go for number 2. This is good entertainment by a loaded band that certainly is going to give us more high quality hard rock in the future.