When the tour started 2 months ago, I knew that time would fly fast, but I wasn’t prepared for it to be flying THIS fast. The last ”En vacker kväll” concert was a festival show in Finland, at Popkalaset in Borgå. When we bought our tickets, we already saw there were priority tickets and the rest and there was a weird seating plan on the website, but we thought it might be a mistake how the crowd area was shown. It wasn’t. The thing is, the organizers separated the priority area from the standard area in a strange way. If you had a priority ticket, you could stand on the right side, if you had a standard ticket, you could stand on the left side. Huh? And since the separation they solved with 2 lines of fences, they even erased 2 nice front row spots. Haha. Whatever.
At this festival, Per Gessle was the headliner again, he was to start at 22:00 and there were 7 acts before him. One of them was Good Harvest, playing after 16:30. Another band was One Desire, they also performed at the festival in Vasa. During their performance there were fireworks and fire flames on stage and it looked quite cool. Would be fun to see such things – or at least confetti cannon – on some future PG tour. Just saying. By the way, good that we had some fire, because it was freezing cold and during One Desire’s gig we had a heavy rain shower too.
Right before Per, Egotrippi, a Finnish pop band was the last act. It seems that Mr. G likes what they are doing, as he posted one of their songs, Matkustaja on Roxette’s Facebook page the day after the concert, stating that it’s an amazing song. Egotrippi of course saw the post and they felt honoured, even wrote a nice comment under the post.
After Egotrippi, we saw the dark grey clouds coming and while the stage was being prepared for ”Per Fucking Gessle” (to quote the presenters, LOL), a heavy shower started hitting us again. Thank God it lasted only until the 2nd or 3rd song in the set and then was no more rain during the night.
We missed Åsa in Vasa, but she joined the gang again in Borgå and filmed a lot. She enjoyed the show as much as we did. At least this is how I saw it. The crowd was cool. Loud sing-along people, putting their hands in the air quite often. And this was the first time on tour when during Här kommer alla känslorna (på en och samma gång) the crowd was dancing together. 2 to the left, 2 to the right. Even Åsa joined the choreography, dancing on the left side of the stage. It was lovely!
We got the same setlist as it was in Vasa, including 19 songs. So great that it didn’t get shortened. The only difference vs. Vasa was that Good Harvest joined Per on stage for Honung och guld, just like in Uppsala and Eskilstuna.
During the band presentation each band member got a huge applause and shouting from the crowd, but the biggest applause went for Magnus, who had his 50th birthday after concert day. The band and crowd sang the Swedish birthday song, ”Ja, må han leva!” to him. It was awesome! HERE you can watch my video recording of it.
Per and the band were in great mood. They had much fun on stage. You could feel they knew that was the last time they played together, so they enjoyed every second of it to the full. Hopefully, it was a last play-together just for a while though.
I wanted to mention some highlight songs, but actually, probably because for me it also felt different being the last show, I could mention all songs as highlight during the evening, for this or that reason. It was a fab closing gig, that’s for sure.
At the end of the concert, before performing Småstadsprat, Per talked to the audience, saying this was their last show on tour and he wanted to thank the band, their families, Live Nation and everyone who helped them, as well as all the people who came to the concerts. He said: ”We love you!” and sent kisses to the crowd. Tears in our eyes…
After Småstadsprat, Per applauded the crowd and the front rows. They took a bow, waved goodbye to us and off they went. It’s always so emotional when a tour ends and we don’t know when we see each other again.
The band and crew celebrated the end of the tour and Magnus’s birthday after the concert.
Per after the final show in a post shared on HIS Facebook page:
TOUR FINALE BORGÅ. Thanx everyone for coming to these 21 fab gigs. Some of the best months in my life! Had so much fun. Love this tour. Love this band. Love these crowds. Love these songs. See you soon again! /P.
In another post shared on Roxette’s Facebook page:
Tour finale in Borgå, Finland last night. Awesome. Thanx everyone for showing up and singing along during the last seven weeks and givin’ us an endless amount of good vibes. Priceless! Love to y’all. See you soon again! /P.
Mr. G also shared a lovely tour finale picture of the gang, including Åsa. Pure love!
All photos in the article are taken by Patrícia Peres.
Setlist
1. På promenad genom stan
2. Vilket håll du än går
3. Juni, juli, augusti
4. Det hjärta som brinner
5. Segla på ett moln / Första pris
6. Min plats
7. It Must Have Been Love
8. Honung och guld (together with Good Harvest)
9. Kung av sand
10. Här kommer alla känslorna (på en och samma gång) / Flickan i en Cole Porter-sång
11. Ljudet av ett annat hjärta
12. Spegelboll
13. Gå & fiska!
Band presentation
14. The Look (with Säkkijärven polkka as intro)
Encore:
15. Varmt igen (with Queen of Rain as intro)
16. Tycker om när du tar på mej
17. Joyride
Encore 2:
18. Sommartider
19. Småstadsprat
Videos:
It Must Have Been Love
Ljudet av ett annat hjärta: 1; 2;
Band presentation
The Look
Tycker om när du tar på mej
Sommartider
Articles, pictures:
Uusimaa.fi
Svenska.yle.fi
Photo Minna Hatinen
Janne Ekman