In my Tallinn review I wrote that gig made it to my Top3 best Roxette concerts ever. What can I say now? It got easily replaced by Helsinki last night! What a show it was!
The support act, Costello was on home turf and to our biggest surprise, they performed their songs in Finnish tonight. Except one song that they kept in English. We almost learned some of their lyrics and now they changed them to Finnish. OK, no sing-along then.
Roxette was greeted by an international front row this time again. Now some more Roxers joined us, so there were even more countries represented. Per was happy to see the familiar faces, he already mentioned us in his first speech, which you can watch HERE. I was very happy that while we were waiting, a younger girl from Finland joined us. It turned out that she started liking Per Gessle and Roxette after she heard Per’s Mazarin album 4-5 years ago. She was too young for her parents to let her go to any concerts years ago. Today was her first show. I love it that Roxette can still engage new fans.
Before the show everyone was thinking about Marie, if she was fine, if she would be sitting on stage or if not, then was everything fixed for her to be safe on stage or if she decided for standing during the whole show. Apply the latter one. She was standing all night and showed us how strong she is! She acted like she would really want us to see everything is alright with her. She even stood for some moments without holding the mic stand. This time the stand was fixed to the floor indeed. Even BoJo came up on stage and checked it with his own eyes. Marie was singing her heart out and enjoyed it to the full. It was just amazing! Perfect Day got a fab respsonse. Marie was satisfied with the crowd’s reaction and she showed Clarence a thumbs up and Clarence showed thumbs up, too. Some fans brought cardboard hearts with different texts on them and held them up during The Heart Shaped Sea.
The concert was so powerful and sound-wise it was awesome as well. Everyone acted so much during the whole show. Marie was smiling at the crowd all the time, showing some funny facial expessions, swaying her hips; Per and Chris played their guitars in several poses, e.g. leaning against each other’s back. That was a cool one! Per even took a round around Marie with his guitar. It was during The Big L., if my memory serves me right. It was so funny. What surely added a lot to Per’s mood tonight is that Åsa is here with him. She filmed a lot. Gabriel was also there, as well as Micke and Christoffer’s daughters. It’s good when the families are around, that’s clear. The band puts even more energy into the gig then.
Despite the fact that Christoffer’s intro to Joyride didn’t really catch this audience, the crowd was loud enough and Per said several times we sounded terrific. I haven’t filmed Chris’s solo, just the band presentation before that. You can watch it HERE. The Look got everyone on their feet, of course! Now the setlist was full, they didn’t leave out any songs this time. Introducing Real Sugar it turned out that yesterday Magnus’s fave Roxette album of all time was Baladas en español. Yeah, sure.
Per’s thoughts after the show:
HELSINKI UPDATE: Yea! Fab evening in Suomi! We’ve been playing this place so many times and it’s always a treat! Thanx for stopping by and help us out with the lyrics! See y’all next time! How about tomorrow in Turkku??? /P.
Hell yeah! Next gig (last one in 2014) is on Saturday (29th November) in Turku. See you there!
Articles and photos
iltalehti.fi
Tiia Santavirta Photography:1; 2; 3;
iltasanomat.fi; 2; 3;
rexfeatures.com
eastnews.pl
turkulainen.fi
Videos
Sleeping In My Car
Crash! Boom! Bang!
Dressed For Success & Dangerous
She’s Got Nothing On (But The Radio)
Stars & Spending My Time
How Do You Do!
It Must Have Been Love
Setlist
Sleeping In My Car
The Big L.
Stars
Spending My Time
Crash! Boom! Bang!
Real Sugar
She’s Got Nothing On (But The Radio)
The Heart Shaped Sea
Perfect Day
Fading Like A Flower
How Do You Do!
7Twenty7
It Must Have Been Love
Dressed For Success
Dangerous
Joyride
Extra:
Watercolours In The Rain
Listen To Your Heart
The Look
Queen of Rain