It all started with a flight to Sundsvall on Friday and the mere twist of fate that the whole of Roxette were on my flight! I promise it was a coincidence, I booked my flight in April and our sources inform us the band only booked there flight around a month ago (I promise we are not stalking you!) I say WE because I was taking the flight with my friend Dany from Brazil! Dany has still not quite got over the shock that she walked through airport security at the exact same time as Marie Fredriksson; she glanced to her right and nearly fainted with shock at seeing Marie and had to sit down! Boarding the flight with the entire band and chatting to Christoffer, Magnus, Clarence and Pelle at the boarding gate was just a fantastic experience and the guys are wonderful to be around!

Saturday morning and the day of the concert started extremely early for myself and Dany as we were outside Norrporten Arena for 6am, only we were not the first as we expected ourselves to be! Huddled up under a sleeping bag was Laura a girl from Argentina who had been there since 4.30am, and I thought I was crazy! Surprisingly the hours in the queue passed rather quickly when you get talking to other people and before lunch time the international fans had begun to flood in – I was the only UK fan!

Moving on to what you all really want to know about though… and my guess that is the concert!

Roxette’s performance in Sundsvall was just amazing and although it tried to rain before the concert started it eventually held off! I almost do not have the words to describe the atmosphere in the venue, the 16,000 strong crowd in the Norrporten Arena were treated to 20 songs from Roxette, (1 cover ‘Steppin Stone’ but this time the Monkees version rather than the Paul Revere version as on the Party Crasher Tour in 2009). Marie is ever the performer on stage and watching her is like being thrown back 20 years to being a teenager again. Those of us that had the pleasure of being fans back then and seeing Roxette in the 90′s on the Joyride 91 & 92 and Crash 94 tours can see how Marie and Per throw in some actions on stage just like years ago, the stage is just made for Marie, she owns the stage, think back to those words she once uttered in the joyride interview (the one we all once owned on VHS video that we watched over and over and over and wore out when we were teenagers!) when she said how she always wanted to be a performer from a young age, she is a performer, the stage does indeed love MARIE FREDRIKSSON! In fact even writing those words sends shivers down my spine. Marie and Per’s performance on stage in Sundsvall was fantastic, unbelievable! A natural a kind of go with the flow and see what happens and something many of us thought we would never see again after Marie got sick, and here we are, the Roxette come back has indeed happened and in less than a week they will play to 20,000 people in Halmstad!

The band are all in great form and we have Christoffer Lundquist on Guitar, Magnus Börjeson on Bass, Clarence Öfwerman as always on the Keyboard, but coming forward on the Guitar during ‘Church of Your Heart’ to stand next to Magnus (and between them getting a fit of the giggles, my guess is at Pelle!) and Pelle Alsing on the Drums and Tambourine during ‘Church of Your Heart’ and Malin Ekstrand as the backup vocals and just full of energy with one hell of a set of legs!

Everyone outside in the line today talked about how much they wanted to hear ‘Silver Blue’, and you have to be there to see the performance live, the guitars, the interaction between the band members is just pure magic along with the lights, it’s a performance just not to be missed. The backdrop on the stage is a classic picture of Per and Marie taken from the Joyride era which I just love, as everyone who knows me Joyride is my era (as my recent tattoo colours tell you) so when the backdrop to the set appeared yesterday after The Baseballs were over I was in my element!

‘Perfect Day’ brought tears to the eyes of many people, (It was like Marie in Amsterdam all over again!) for me it is such a powerful ballad that Marie sings and puts her whole heart and soul into and after the past few years and her illness, watching her perform this ballad now live makes it now all the more special. Marie flustered her words a little, but this is to be expected as I am sure like us Marie is going to get emotional when she is singing to a crowd of 16,000 people, but we helped out and sang along…

For me the song of the evening was ‘The Big L’ everyone has a Roxette song that is so special to them, and this is mine. ‘The Big L’ holds fond memories of my teenage years, being in my bedroom and recording a 90 minute tape of it and playing it constantly back to back so much to the annoyance of my mother, who got so sick and tired of it, she went out one day when I was at school and bought me a copy of ‘Joyride’ on cassette, I came home one day and it was there lay out on the bed, with a message ‘change the tape will you, please…’ Of course as many of my friends will know, my mother liked Roxette too, but sadly is no longer with me having passed away last year and I had a little bit of joyride theme at her funeral because my mother always wanted a ‘Joyride’ theme at her funeral… she would have loved to have known Roxette were back on the stage again performing like they did the first time we saw them on her birthday July 17th 1992 in Sheffield Arena!

Twenty songs were performed in all, missing was ‘Things Will Never Be The Same’ and ‘Church Of Your Heart’ was the final song of the evening, in which Pelle was freed from his drum kit and given a tambourine which was funny, the whole band together up front was a great atmosphere to see again.

To top off my evening of concert fun, I got lost in Sundsvall! After any concert regardless of who you are seeing, it’s almost impossible to find a taxi. I spent what felt like forever walking around to find my bloody hotel! I eventually gave up and headed back to the arena in the hope to locate a taxi from there. Dany and her Brazilian friend had gone in the search of hoping to find Per and Marie after their press conference. I am afraid after a 4.30am wake up and a 6am start outside the arena all I wanted was my bed and a double vodka! I was just heading back over the bridge to meet Dany, when Pelle spotted me (or was it I who spotted him!) either way we ended up chatting on the bridge about random things involving Liverpool FC and Manchester and me explaining that I was bloody lost and couldn’t locate a taxi (insert a choice of fabulous British words here that came from me at 1am in the morning!), Pelle saved my sanity and hailed a taxi – I tried this several times, it was probably the British T-shirt I was wearing that put the Swedish taxi drivers off! We hugged and said our goodbyes he was my lifesaver and I was safe back in my hotel in minutes and probably asleep in about 30 minutes, I never did get my double vodka! (I’ll make up for it at Leif’s on Friday!)

Sunday morning after breakfast in my hotel, I was planning a rather lazy day in Sundsvall. I decided to go for a walk to the nearest shop to locate water and the daily newspapers. I headed out around lunchtime and as I walking from around the corner of my hotel, I spotted a coach that looked familiar from the airport two days before hand. I immediately recognised it as the coach Roxette has used from the airport, I thought to myself ‘Oh my god, this cannot be happening’, I saw Bo, the tour manager, and I smiled and said ‘We really should stop meeting like this; I only came out for water’. I found out from Bo that Roxette were leaving the hotel shortly…

Needless to say, shortly after Marie and her family left the hotel and after 19 years of being a fan I finally got to speak to Marie and exchange some words, this is the first time I have ever spoken to Marie or had my photo taken with her, she loved my tattoo and asked if it hurt! (It didn’t) and Josefin took a photo of us. The band came out and I spoke to some of them again and they asked what I thought of last night show and if I’d seen this morning’s paper, at that point I hadn’t but I have now and realised I am in the local paper with my flag on the front row along with some of the other international fans.

Per came out last and also posed for photos with some people who were waiting. Gabbe kindly took of photo of me with Per! I left the guys to it and wish Per and the other guys a safe journey over to Denmark!

Of course the guys are off the Skanderborg Festival in Denmark for tonight’s show. I joked with the band about the trouble some fans had about getting there and how one of the security guys had actually offered to drive some fans to Stockholm for their flights yesterday… in the end they contacted the bus driver in Sundsvall to get them to hold the bus a little longer after the concert, to allow the fans to make it! The security at the concert yesterday in Sundsvall were amazing, the best ever at any concert I have ever attended!

I got the set list and a plectrum! I fly home tomorrow back to a no doubt rainy cold Manchester (or actually Bolton about 25 minutes away from Manchester) but I fly back out on Friday for the Halmstad show!) I’ll add some photos to this article tomorrow evening when I am home!

*Edit* (Tuesday 11th August 2010)

Back home, edited the article a little, now I am back using my own PC, remind me to take my netbook next time I am travelling instead of relying on hotel PC’s! I’ve added some pictures to the article, all are © to me Alison Marie Lowther. I shall be back in Halmstad on Friday, looking forward to catching up and starting the joyride all over again and for some crazy reason I am already thinking of Russia and that’s not good, I start university next month!!!!! :p (runs to go and put her credit cards in blocks of ice in the freezer…)