By Jonny Bakes
Some people like to chase the sun while on holiday by going on exotic cruises round the Caribbean, but not me. Instead, thanks to some amazing friends, I was lucky enough to bag a ticket to the special tenth anniversary edition of the Sabaton Cruise! Having been on the Sabaton Cruise back in 2017, I had a rough idea of what to expect, but this year’s promised to be something even bigger and more spectacular to celebrate this big milestone. The only information we had in advance of the event was that this year’s cruise would be twice the length of previous years (which were only an overnight affair) and that it would also include an opportunity to spend the day in Tallinn, Estonia, which had been on my bucket list for years!
So, we set off to Stockholm as a band of four – representing Scotland, England and God’s Own Country (or Yorkshire to most people), in search of the boat that would provide us with two solid days of drinking, debauchery and heaps of history lessons from Sabaton! As the boat didn’t leave until Monday afternoon we took the opportunity to have a tourist trip around Stockholm on the Sunday which descended into a tour of the bars of Gamla Stan (Old Town) to reward ourselves for all of the culture that we’d taken in during the day before we ventured onwards to check out what is supposed to be Stockholm’s best rock bar – The Anchor. The Anchor was exactly what we were looking for in a rock bar: the music was brilliant, it was dark and dingy so we didn’t have to look at each other, and the beer prices were reasonable… well reasonable for Stockholm anyway…
Some sore heads the following morning, but that didn’t stop us taking in possibly the most impressive tourist attraction Stockholm has to offer in the form of the Vasa. The Vasa was the extravagant flagship of Swedish King Gustav Adolf, subject of the Sabaton song ‘The Lion From The North’, which capsized and sank within two kilometres of Stockholm on its maiden voyage in 1627 and was lost for centuries. It was recovered in 1968 with a mostly intact hull and has been extensively restored and resides in the Vasa museum in an incredible state of completeness. I don’t think there was a more fitting way for us to start the first day of the Sabaton Cruise than visiting this incredible relic of the Swedish Empire!
We arrived at the ferry terminal to find the Baltic Queen waiting for us decked out in very festive Christmas lights. It looked a similar size to the MS Galaxy that hosted the cruise in 2017 suggesting that although the event was bigger, the capacity had remained at roughly 2,500 which would explain why the cruise had sold out in less than an hour again! Inside the terminal, worried looking passengers of other ferries were trying to navigate their way through the hordes of camo clad Sabaton fans that had descended on the small bar in the terminal, getting sufficiently lubricated in anticipation. Upon collecting our tickets, the closely guarded agenda for the cruise was finally revealed with some pretty big surprises! Joining Sabaton this year were Civil War and Thobbe Englund, meaning that we would have pretty much every previous member of Sabaton together under one roof for possibly the first time. Thrown into the mix as well were Baruk Khazad, Eleine, Manimal and Tabu – and even an appearance from American historian Indy Neidell who has been collaborating with the band to create the Sabaton History channel, It was pretty clear that this was definitely going to be a big event tailored very specifically for the fans!
Like any respectable metalheads we headed straight to the bar after dropping our gear in the little cabin that would become our hangover den for the next couple of days to take advantage of the drinks offers (pint of lager and a 4cl shot of jager for the bargain price of seven Euros) and catching a bit of TABU in the piano bar, two fantastic female vocalists dishing out chilled lounge covers of Judas Priest and the like, before making our way through to the Starlight Palace to check out Baruk Khazad. As you may have guessed from the name, Baruk Khazad are very much influenced by ‘Lord Of The Rings’ (as my friend pointed out, Khazad is another name for dwarves in Middle Earth) and they took to the stage decked out in war paint to churn out an impressive set of dwarven inspired death metal tracks. Musically quite similar to fellow Swedes Amon Amarth, these guys definitely grabbed our attention and are certainly a band to keep an eye on in the future!
We decided the best thing to do would be to take advantage of the buffet restaurant before we got ourselves too carried away to catch Sabaton’s first set of the cruise later that evening. To our surprise though, the buffet also included unlimited beer and wine! By the time we’d left the buffet, the boat had left the confines of the Swedish archipelago and begun to pick up speed and some sway, leading to some slight greenness around the gills as we waited for our sea legs to kick in and the food to go down… But this didn’t stop us making our way to the opposite end of the boat and back to the Starlight Palace to see Sabaton.
The small venue room was packed wall to wall with a sea of urban camo and Sabaton shirts as the band made their way down the stairs from the balcony to tease us for a while by hiding out backstage. By the time the band reappeared, the crowd were absolutely frantic as they burst onto stage for ‘Ghost Division’ which has by now become almost a staple opener for the band. Following this up with ‘Great War’, Sabaton worked the crowd up into such a frenzy that the whole room seemed to be bouncing and causing the whole boat to move with them! As is tradition for Sabaton sets, the crowd continually taunted Joakim Broden with the opening chant of ‘Swedish Pagans’ and he would respond by announcing that he’d given in to the demand before the guys play a completely different song. It’s a joke that shows no sign of going away anytime soon, and just keeps developing into something bigger every time I see Sabaton! This first set drew from a wide range of their catalogue with the tracks from ‘Carolus Rex’ sung in Swedish, much to the delight of the Swedes in the room, who must have made up at least 80 per cent of the crowd on the ship! The set ended with Joakim announcing that the band would end with a cover of Manowar’s ‘Hail And Kill’ which got the whole room buzzing in anticipation, only to result in Joakim’s revenge for the constant heckling as the band launch into ‘Swedish Pagans’!
We made our way through to the after party at Seaside (which appears to normally be the kid’s disco) which was significantly quieter than it had been in previous years. In a change of tact, passengers were allowed to buy alcohol from the Tax Free shop at all points during the cruise, instead of only the morning we return to Stockholm, which resulted in lots of clusters of partying in various cabins across the boat, so we set off to mingle with everyone else before rolling into the cabin around 5am…
Needless to say, when the frequent tannoy announcements of our impending arrival in Tallinn started a few hours later, we were not in the most functional of states. So instead of rushing off the boat to explore Tallinn, we decided to stick around on the Baltic Queen until the head fog was sufficiently lifted to allow us to enjoy the city. This did mean that we were able to catch Indy Neidell as he was chilling out in the Sea Dog pub answering historical questions from the few fans who had also decided to stick around. He certainly knows his stuff and, if you haven’t already, I would definitely recommend watching the series of historical videos on the Sabaton History Channel. Shortly afterwards we managed to drag ourselves out to Tallinn to wander around the old town and generally try to recover from the previous night. My personal highlight of Tallinn has to be the medieval-style bar/restaurant, Olde Hansa, with it’s traditionally brewed beer served in authentic earthenware by staff in detailed period costume. Before long we decided to make our way back to the boat to prepare ourselves for round two with a tactical raid on the Tax Free shop to provide some relief for our poor wallets!
Things kicked off again shortly after the boat left Tallinn, with the second set from Sabaton in the Starlight Palace. This time we managed to get ourselves deep into the heart of the crowd for what was, in my opinion, an even better set than the first! This time we were treated to songs that have fallen off the usual set list roster in favour of newer songs, including one of my personal favourites – ‘Far From the Fame’. The atmosphere was absolutely electric as the band kicked off with ‘Bismarck’ which has become almost an accidental fan favourite after it was recorded to advertise the game ‘World Of Warships’. Fans who remember the video that accompanied this song will be glad to know that Joakim’s phrase “so, did you find the boat?” became somewhat the phrase of the weekend and could be heard constantly throughout the weekend.
Things got pretty emotional when Sabaton launched into one of their more solemn numbers ‘The Price Of A Mile’; you could really feel the raw passion from the fans as they belted out this song of remembrance for the fallen soldiers of the First World War. And then things got even more electric when the band launched into ‘The White Death’ which is another favourite of mine that hasn’t been part of the live show for a little while now, but it seemed that every single person in the crowd had not forgotten the lyrics to this one! The second set ended with one of the best songs on the ‘Heroes’ album, ‘To Hell And Back’ and yet again the entire crowd was bouncing in unison. I do not envy the captain of the boat for one minute; he must have had a hell of a job keeping control of the boat with a couple of thousand people jumping around at the aft end!
Thobbe Englund performing on the 2019 Sabaton Cruise
After a short break for some liquid refreshment, we made our way back to the Starlight Palace to check out the set from Thobbe Englund as it would be the first time I’d managed to get round to listening to his solo stuff since leaving Sabaton, and I must say I was pretty impressed! He’s taken the fantastic guitar playing that made him part of the Sabaton “Mothership”, as he called it, and really moulded that into his own unique sound. Unfortunately, by this time, there weren’t a huge number of people still standing to appreciate it, which means they also missed the impromptu cover of Judas Priest’s ‘The Ripper’.
Knowing we had to make a sharp exit the next day, we decided to call it a night there. Well, until two things happened, I bumped into Simon Jansson (Primal Instinct) and the DJ at the Sea Dog Pub started playing ‘Warriors Of The World’ – so my body took over and suddenly I was getting involved and had magically acquired a bottle cider… So, it was another late night again for us as we spent more time drinking and meeting more interesting people, including a contingent of French engineers who stuck around for a while to talk about historical events like Waterloo and Agincourt…
And then suddenly, it was all over, the tannoy announced that we were arriving back into Stockholm. We parted ways with one of the guys and had to make our way swiftly to what seemed to be the world’s smallest airport (Stockholm Bramma) anad drag ourselves back to Edinburgh via a short stopover in Brussels, which was mostly spent trying to sleep off the effects of the cruise!
It was another fantastic event and is definitely something for the more fanatical Sabaton fans. It’s a great experience to have a huge collection of people of different nationalities all unified by one band! It’s very much an event made for the fans as well, with prices starting at somewhere in the region of 80 Euros per person, for what you end up getting for that money I can’t expect the bands make much of a profit from this one! I’m absolutely on board with any band that goes the extra mile to give something back to their fans, and that fact that on this occasion it happens to be one of my favourites, well that’s even better! I can safely say that I’ll be considering going again next year, and that seems to be the general consensus of everyone else I’ve spoken to since leaving the boat.
The worst thing about the whole trip though? That’s an easy question: it has to be returning to reality again afterwards…
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- PHOTO CREDIT: Photographs by the author.
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