EnCounter - the first band out. From the left: Patrik Eriksson, Hanna Jonsson and Leif Genberg.
Photo by: Lotta Jansson

The annual and popular synth festival Virtual X-Mas in Lund is one of the largest events of the year for this kind of music in Scandinavia. One saturday in December each year the record company Energy and the venue Mejeriet invites four bands, some DJ:s and 500-1000 happy people, give them a free CD and let them loose inside for a whole night of serious party activities. When the last band have played the ones who are still happy goes to a post-Virtual X-Mas party at Club Arnold.
Of course, Release was attending at Mejeriet, meeting readers and selling the new issue, which was only a few days old.
This year the bands playing live were: the newcomers EnCounter - a female fronted (yes, that is unusal) synthpopband from the northern parts of Sweden, Mesh - were not booked until a short time before the event, the german EBM-duo Evil's Toy - quite unknown in Scandinavia, until now, and finally, the living legends Rational Youth, who have travelled all the way from Canada to play their first gig in 15 years (!).

The final band Rational Youth stretched out to the fans and said good bye after their gig.
From the left: Tracy Howe and Bill Vorn.
Photo by: Mikael Kahrle