Thunderstone Symphony X Stratovarius A quarter past seven. I got stuck in the traffic so I missed the first act of the day: Thunderstone. Just a minute after I entered the venue they stopped playing and I could still here the crowd whistling. The fact they were whistling inside ensured me they must have been playing a good show, cause my experience with support acts is the lack of attention they get, mostly. As I entered the Pepsi Stage I was totally surprised by the numbers of Symphony X-shirts, cause its number was almost equal to the number of Stratovarius-shirts. I cannot remember I�ve ever seen such a balance between fans of an opening act and fans of the main act. As the lights went the crowd went nervous and with a musical introduction the band showed up. It was easy to see that all the members of the band were relaxed, willing to put up a great show, almost continually smiling to the crowd. Front man Russell Allen didn�t seem to have any problems with the (very high) vocals and Michael Romeo put up an amazing guitar solo halfway the set. During the whole show, Symphony X gave away a very hard show, which asked every technical ability from every single member. Therefore, the sound had to be in perfect condition, which wasn�t during the whole show. But a band of this kind that can play without hardly any mistake should get all the credits they deserve, despite of the bad sound. Unfortunately, the show ended up as quickly as it started, after being on stage for a short 45 minutes. The crowd was very impressed and glad with the performance, singing along songs like Evolution, Awakenings and the title of the latest record, The Odyssey. Symphony X proved to be one of the main performances in their scene and they deserve to be the main act during their tour. Then they would have the ability of the whole stage, including their own lights and maybe some special effects. As I said before, Symphony X left the stage pretty fast to make some space for the headliner of the evening, Stratovarius, the roots of the power-metal. Despite the only original member of Stratovarius is guitarist Tolkki, who entered the band in 1984 the five members are a perfect band and together they have travelled all over the world. Immediately after the band started playing, the crowd woke up and started to sing the songs along with the guys. The stage was filled with bright, light colours of the rainbow and fireworks above the drums ended the first song spectacular. The five men from Finland seemed to enjoy the set pretty much, which included songs like �Hunting high and low�, �Speed of light�, the new one �Destiny�and the beautiful song �Forever�. Tolkki came up with some nice guitar solo�s, Michael was slamming his drums for almost two hours and Kotipelto (singer) didn�t seem to bother the high vocals. All this effort was great and made the performance nice to watch, but Kotipelto tried to get a little bit more enthusiasm from the crowd then they wanted to give. It was very clear that half the crowed preferred Symphony X instead of Stratovarius and that seemed to bother the band a little. Despite that little fact, I think Stratovarius came up with a great show, including all the classics and some new songs. A big bang of fireworks at the front of the stage ended the set, the band left and looked satisfied. And so was I. Review by: Siem Deutz (correct me if I'm wrong)