Impossible, but last night we reached the tour’s halftime. 10 concerts done, 9+1 to go! The 10th GT40 gig was held in Dalhalla, Rättvik. This is definitely one of the most beautiful venues not only in Sweden, but in the world too. It is an open air theatre located in a former limestone quarry, and is used as a summer music venue. I’ve always wanted to see a concert there, but couldn’t manage until now, even if Roxette played there 2015 and Per 2017. The place is really beautiful and seeing the stage with that backdrop was amazing while the sun was still up.
The concert sold out very fast in February, but the show wasn’t just sold-out. It beat the attendance record in Dalhalla! 5926 people came to see Gyllene Tider.
After entering Dalhalla, it turned out that some fans who bought standing tickets got armbands at the entrance, while others didn’t. We were informed after asking the security girls that we wouldn’t be able to enter the standing area without the armband, so we should go back and get ourselves one… Hm. I thought it wasn’t the first ever concert they organized there. How come the ticket controllers didn’t give armbands to the standing ticket owners automatically? Whatever. We still had some time until the inner gates were opened, so we could go back to the outer entrance (fortunately, we didn’t have to go back to the very first entrance) and get ourselves the armbands.
Some minutes after entering, Micke Syd appeared in the backstage area, on the side of the stage, visible to us and we could see he was taking pictures of the venue. He had his parents, family and friends as guests for the Dalhalla show.
After the inner gates were open and we rushed to the front row, we realized that this time it might not be the best place to stand. I actually got in front of the boxes, with the speakers on top of them and this with a very high stage meant I would have literally seen nothing. So let’s say, the venue is amazing, but not the most front-row-friendly place at all. Most of the front row fans still decided to stay there, but we decided to go to the back of the standing area and watch the concert from there. Those who stayed in the front row couldn’t see all band members during the show. Göran, Micke Syd, Dea and Malin-My were too much in the back of the stage to be visible. It’s disappointing to those who attended maybe this one concert only or just 2-3 on the tour. Now that I’ve been ”forced” to stand more in the back, I had the chance to see the whole stage picture altogether. The lighting Gyllene Tider logo on top of the stage, the screens on the sides and the whole gang at the same time. And I liked what I saw!
Actually, I can tell that for me Dalhalla was the 2nd best concert on this tour so far. (No. 1 for me is still Skövde.) It’s because of the venue, the band, the audience. Per probably felt much much better, at least that’s how I saw him. He was constantly smiling, bouncing around, stomping and his vocals were in shape again. The whole band put a lot of energy into this concert. The temperature was quite hot, even Anders left his jacket behind when he came back for the encore and Per and Micke Syd were drying the sweat on their faces with towels. Despite the hot weather, all the band members were very active on stage and provided us with top entertainment.
The acoustics of the venue is wonderful! The audience was amazing too. Already during Puls they were clapping loudly, they were singing along most of the songs and from Ljudet av ett annat hjärta those who had seats started standing up. During the uptempo songs they remained standing and during the encore actually everyone got up from their seats and were either dancing or just clapping and singing along. This… (I mean the sitting crowd standing up…) happening… in Sweden! I’m impressed! It was fantastic to see how the band and the crowd connected last night.
Regarding the setlist, unfortunately, they skipped Det kändes inte som maj and Tylö Sun, as well as the first song in the usual first encore. But this time there was only 1 encore and the guys and girls played all 5 encore songs one after another. The setlist is shrinking. Not good, not good! I do hope this is only for saving Per’s voice one week after he got sick, so maybe from next week they get back to the at-least-23-songs-long setlist.
Åsa filmed a lot during the gig. Both from the side and from the front. I’m sure Anders Roos took some extra nice pictures of the 5 Golden Guys and the 2 Golden Girls at this venue.
When the concert ended and we went out to find our cars, the buffet next to the exit played GT songs and you could hear a lot of people in the leaving cars were still under the concert’s effect, listening to GT hits in the car. The old Gyllene songs sounded the best in the old-timers.
Without a day off, Stockholm calling!
Setlist
1. Skicka ett vykort, älskling
2. Juni, juli, augusti
3. Det hjärta som brinner
4. (Hon vill ha) Puls
5. Flickorna på TV2
6. Vandrar i ett sommarregn
7. (Dansar inte lika bra som) Sjömän
8. Flickan i en Cole Porter-sång
9. Tuffa tider
BAND PRESENTATION
10. Låt denna trumslagarpojke sjunga!
11. Kung av sand
12. En sten vid en sjö i en skog
13. Ljudet av ett annat hjärta
14. Ska vi älska, så ska vi älska till Buddy Holly
15. (Kom så ska vi) Leva livet
Encore
16. Det är över nu
17. Gå & fiska!
18. När vi två blir en
19. Sommartider
20. När alla vännerna gått hem
All pics in the article are taken by Patrícia Peres.