After an exceptional show at an exceptional venue in Paris, Roxette performed in Amsterdam last night. Amsterdam. A magical place that rewrote Roxette’s future in 2009. In 2012 the band did a sold-out gig at the same venue as they played yesterday, at Heineken Music Hall. It was quite crowded this time as well.
You couldn’t tell there was no day off between 2 concerts. Everyone on stage gave all their energy into the show and enjoyed it to the full. Marie was in top form and Per was bouncing around like hell. The band was also animated, playing all the tunes with much enthusiasm. The crowd was rather reserved when it came to jumping and dancing, but their clapping technique was in top shape and they showed they knew the lyrics to all greatest hits.
You surely remember what happened during the Prague show, when Sandra Knospe had her birthday. Well, yesterday she celebrated her 200th gig (w.o.w.!), so she got mentioned on stage again before Crush On You, thanx to Magnus. To the next 200, Sandra!
As you could read the sad news, a great drummer working together also with Roxette and Per in the past, Christer Jansson passed away. Many well-known Swedish people posted about it and that he’ll be missed. You could even see a post on Roxette’s Facebook page. They decided to have Christer on stage with them last night, so Micke N-S placed a picture of him next to Pelle’s drum set. Nice gesture.
AMSTERDAM: Yeah! Wow! Great evening with a most wonderful crowd + band! Thanx everyone for making this yet another Dutch Paradise taking place!!!! See you soon!!!! /P&M
Next gig is on Friday (29th May) in Antwerp, Belgium.
Sleeping In My Car
The Big L.
Stars
Spending My Time
Crash! Boom! Bang!
Crush On You
She’s Got Nothing On (But The Radio)
The Heart Shaped Sea
Watercolours In The Rain / Paint
Fading Like A Flower
How Do You Do!
It Must Have Been Love
Dressed For Success
Dangerous
Joyride
From Budapest, Roxette travelled to Prague for their 31st gig on the XXX tour. The O2 Arena is huge and we already knew there would be appr. 16-17000 people attending the show, so many fans decided to go to the arena early, to have a chance to reach the best standing places. No one expected the security check being stricter than at any airport and scanning the tickets 3 times at different check points makes no sense at all. Mainly if the guys at the third point don’t know the technique of scanning or the scanners don’t work. Then those hostesses could practice at home how to put the wristbands faster on people’s arms. Many got hold back at the last checking point this way and could enter the venue only 5-6 minutes later, which meant the best places at the standing area were already occupied, of course. Well done, O2 Arena security team. Good luck to all the Madonna fans in November!
Photo by Patrícia Peres
After a disastrous entrance, all I can say about the gig tonight is purely positive. After Eskobar left the stage, Roxette’s crew started to prepare everything for the show. When Micke N-S checked Per’s mic stand, it seemed to be quite unstable. He and 2 other guys from the crew started jumping like Per would and they saw it had to be fixed, otherwise it wouldn’t survive Mr G’s stomping. They managed to make it stable in a short time.
The concert started at 21:15 and we could see Åsa was there with the iPhone in her hands. While the photographers were in front of the stage during the first songs, she stayed on the right side of the stage and she was even dancing while filming. Too cool! When it came to Crash! Boom! Bang!, she started shooting Micke N-S and it was quite funny how they were singing the song to each other. That video I guess we won’t get to see on Roxette’s Facebook page, however, it would be fun.
This time there were 2 screens on the 2 sides of the stage to make it possible for everyone to see what was happening on stage.
Marie was in an extremely good shape. Not only her jacket, but she herself was shining and smiling all the time, interacting with the crowd, as well as with Magnus, Chris and Dea. Oh and yes, with Per, too. Mr G was in b-b-b-b-bouncing mood all night. His guitar fights with Chris and their playing next to each other were just amazing! The picks sticked too much to Per’s fingers that he sometimes threw the picks even behind himself, not to the crowd. Too funny!
Prague audience was singing along all night and their clapping was fantastic. The crowd reaction to Chris playing a local song was great. When the band left the stage after Joyride, they could hardly stop clapping, whistling and shouting Roxette! Roxette!
Before playing Spending My Time, Per talked about playing in Prague 4 years ago and asked who was there back then. Many shouted they were there and he said it’s great to see so many familiar faces. Then asked the crowd to help them out if we knew the lyrics.
Photo by Patrícia Peres
The real surprise came before they played Crush On You. Per started the usual conversation about Magnus’s fave Rox album, but tonight Magnus decided for someone else telling what her fave album was. He picked someone in the audience. Someone, who had her birthday today and it was Sandra Knospe, who is close to having her 200th concert anniversary. The whole happening you can watch in THIS video. It was undescribably amazing! What a birthday present! Per also greeted Sandra on Facebook before the show and at the end of the gig Pelle also came to her and gave her a drumhead (see the pic). Pure awesomeness!
Witnessing this whole thing I can say it would be fantastic if the band could keep this kind of spontaneity at the shows. I don’t mean wishing happy birthday to someone at each concert, but today this, tomorrow something else that fits. It would make the gigs even more enjoyable and interesting.
The setlist changed vs. the previous concert, but only at 1 point: they played Almost Unreal again. So it’s again 18 songs on the setlist.
PRAGUE UPDATE: Yea, fab gig tonite. 16.200 wonderful people took the concert to new heights. We had a blast, love to come back to this beautiful city. Vids to follow in due time…. Cheers, P.
Next gig is on Saturday (23rd May) at the Jelling Festival in Denmark.
Sleeping In My Car
The Big L.
Stars
Spending My Time
Crash! Boom! Bang!
Crush On You
She’s Got Nothing On (But The Radio)
The Heart Shaped Sea
Watercolours In The Rain / Paint
Fading Like A Flower
How Do You Do!
It Must Have Been Love
Dressed For Success
Dangerous
Joyride
Extra:
Almost Unreal
Listen To Your Heart
The Look
The 30th concert of the XXX tour happened in Hungary’s beautiful capital, Budapest. When Roxette played Budapest the last time it was 1st June 2011, almost exactly 4 years ago. Per even mentioned it before they started playing Spending My Time. HERE you can check his talking. Back then he was so much on a high that he wrote this in his concert evaluating post: ”Yep! Super crowd in Budapest as expected! Thanx all of you 10 11 12000 for screaming singing shouting waving. We love you, Budapest! Let’s get married!!” Well, the arena wasn’t sold out, but it was very much crowded (I would say there were even more people than in 2011) and we all did our best to let this long engagement come to a marriage tonight. I think we did it perfectly right. Budapest crowd was a very loud and active audience.
While Eskobar, the support act was on stage, Per posted:
BUDAPEST BACKSTAGE: Marie, Dea and Chris are singing Love Is All and Milk And Toast And Honey. What’s happening? /P.
It got lots of us thinking about how awesome it would be, if they added those 2 songs to the setlist. Unfortunately, it didn’t happen in the end. So we now need to hear / watch the backstage video of these 2 pearls. At least we hope it got recorded by Mr G.
When Roxette entered the stage, we expected Marie and Per to be in white outfits again, but it was only Marie who kept her white clothes (jeans and shoes as well) partly. Per got back to black. Sleeping In My Car was the opening song as usual and towards the end Micke N-S went on stage and tried to repair(?) something on Per’s guitar. You can see that action in THIS video (from appr. 2:35).
Photo by Patrícia Peres
Each and every song sounded fab tonight and the crowd loved them all. The whole band was in top shape and so was Marie’s voice. She was singing her heart out and she even tried to look into the eyes of all the familiar faces in the front row and wave to them. She was awesome! Per at the same time was charmed by the crowd’s activity and he showed his energetic side with his Gessle moves during the whole show. After playing How Do You Do! he said into the mic: ”That felt good!” Oh we enjoyed it, too!
Before the band introduction, Per asked Marie how she was doing and she said ”I’m feeling fine. It’s great to be here.” PG: ”You’re a great crowd! Thank you very very much! We hope you’re having fun tonight!” If we were having fun? We had a blaaast! Although we missed very much Per’s thank you in Hungarian (köszönöm).
After the band got introduced, Chris started playing a local tune which first we didn’t recognize, but I think he started it in a teasing way rather, because when we realized which song it was, he got a fab crowd reaction. It was an old Hungarian rock band’s, Omega’s song (Gyöngyhajú lány) which was even covered by Scorpions (White Dove).
Photo by Patrícia Peres
Then came Joyride and of course there were balloons. Some of them ended up in the front part of the stage and while Per was rushing through there, he was kicking them back towards the crowd. It was pure fun!
Marie asked the audience again several times to sing along more It Must Have Been Love and Listen To Your Heart. She was so lovely when she showed she wanna hear us.
There was a slightly new conversation between Per and Magnus before Crush On You. HERE you can check it out. You’ll get to know some info about Magnus’s ABBA lipsync secrets and that Per made an album here in Hungary titled ”Hooked on Hungary”, but he decided to release Have A Nice Day instead. Haha… 😉
The setlist was the same as at the past few concerts, 17 songs. The closing song was The Look and it was strange that this time the background cells were closed and the projection of the colourful Roxette sign went to the curtain. Might be because of some damages the stage set suffered in Bucharest. It looked perfect anyway.
Sleeping In My Car
The Big L.
Stars
Spending My Time
Crash! Boom! Bang!
Crush On You
She’s Got Nothing On (But The Radio)
The Heart Shaped Sea
Watercolours In The Rain / Paint
Fading Like A Flower
How Do You Do!
It Must Have Been Love
Dressed For Success
Dangerous
Joyride
After 2 days off, Roxette played in Bucharest tonight. The gates had been announced to be opened at 7 pm and the first support act, The Amsterdams to perform at 7:40 pm, then it would have been Eskobar’s time and Roxette would have hit the stage at 9 pm. The weather decided to rewrite the whole agenda though. Gates opened later and there was a long queue for about an hour to enter the open-air venue. When The Amsterdams were on stage, a heavy hailstorm arrived to Bucharest and changed everything. People started panicking and many of them ran towards the exit. Even the security guys told the people that because of the storm the show would be cancelled. Thank God, most people sticked to their places and wanted to see Roxette live, so they prayed for the storm to leave the Romanian capital and hoped for the show not being cancelled in the end. When the situation needed some explanation, Per himself posted this on Roxette’s Facebook page:
RAIN IN BUCHAREST: The Rox show is slightly late due to the heavy rain and the majestic thunder but will start very very soon. Have to get rid of the water from the mixing console, light projectors etc. And we needed a hairdryer to get Pelle’s snaredrum back in shape! It’s all coming to place now. Thanx for waiting, folks! /P.
Some left comments under Per’s post that it would be great if they could cancel the show and do it tomorrow. Hello? It doesn’t work like this… I mean it’s understandable that the heavy storm made a lot of people leave, feeling the situation was dangerous and they were afraid of the storm itself, but the rest of the crowd was still there waiting, holding on tight to their plans to see their beloved band. No storm could stop them waiting for experiencing a great concert. The crew did their best and they made it possible for Roxette to charm the audience with their performance. Hats off, guys! Unfortunately, after all the delay and damage, Eskobar didn’t have the chance to play, but they enjoyed watching the Rox gig from the crowd.
The closest followers of Roxette got a fab surprise from Marie and Per: they appeared in white outfits on stage. This time Marie wasn’t barefoot, but she was wearing a pair of white shoes. She was still freezing, though, as it was quite cold after the thunderstorm. Per had 3 different shirts with PER, ROX and XXX written on the left arm, but he missed buying some more fitting shoes, so he had those ones he is wearing with his black outfits. They both looked awesome anyway! White is the new black! Keep those clothes for the next shows, Ms Effe and Mr G!
All in all, it turned out to be a night to remember for those who waited patiently and were partying to Roxette’s greatest hits. One could think the setlist got shorter, but no. The band played all 17 songs they performed on their past 2 gigs.
BUCHAREST: Oh yea! After all that rain came shine! Great crowd, a band on its toes, all in all a fab evening. Thanx everyone for a wonderful happening. Vids to follow. Cheers, P&Co.
Next gig is on Tuesday (19th May) in Budapest, Hungary.
Sleeping In My Car
The Big L.
Stars
Spending My Time
Crash! Boom! Bang!
Crush On You
She’s Got Nothing On (But The Radio)
The Heart Shaped Sea
Watercolours In The Rain / Paint
Fading Like A Flower
How Do You Do!
It Must Have Been Love
Dressed For Success
Dangerous
Joyride
Extra:
Listen To Your Heart
The Look
Thanx to all who kept us updated during the waiting time and after the show.
The day started very early for many fans that had catch planes, cars, busses, trains to get to Barcelona on time to queue up and try to get the best spots in the first row(s). The first ones were at St. Jordi Club at around 9 and started with the numbering system, that had worked in Madrid too (as well as many times before in other countries/tours). And it paid of, around lunch time the sun was the strongest and we had to find some shadows under the trees nearby. The waiting was very calm, it felt at times more like a picnic, under some trees having lunch and chatting with friends. At around five-ish more people started to join and every body went back to her/his places in the queue. The local security told us that since we had been organised all the time, they would let us in in groups of five to try to respect the numbering system. Nice! It only worked for the first … 10? since the ones that were let in later seemed to panic to get a precious place in the first row and started to run (where is Show Security Sweden when you need them!). In any case, it wasn’t pushy but rather hot inside (and it was about to get hotter!).
Eskobar showed up on stage right on time at half past eight and played their 30-minute set, which people seemed to enjoy a lot. Some fans shouted “Eskobar! Eskobar!” or the typical “ooeee oeee oeee” many times as well as Daniel’s name. I think it’s always nice when the support band is welcomed warmly by the audience, it makes the whole show a better experience.
And finally it was time for Roxette (on time this time). About 4.000 fans were waiting for the Roxing guys and girls and ready to give everything during the whole concert. As soon as “Sleeping In My Car” started to sound people went wild. I haven’t heard such a loud bunch for a long time! Sometimes the audience was so loud it was hard to hear the band sing. This went on during the whole concert, even non-singles like “The Heart Shaped Sea” or “Watercolours In The Rain/Paint” were welcomed by a lot of sing-along (check video below). This last one was very touching, with Marie singing as wonderful as always. The setlist was the same as in Madrid.
(C) Mariana G. Magnus with the chicken hat in Barcelona.
And everybody on stage seemed to love the crazy audience, judging by the big smiles. Dea and Chris were teasing each other all the time, and Magnus even had the honour to wear one of the chicken hats that made a second appearance in Barcelona (read Madrid’s review for details). And Per somehow got lost presenting one of the songs, he started to say something about he hoped we knew that song “because………”? He laughed and everybody else laughed as well. And, of course, everybody on stage got his or her share of “Claaaarence” or “Maaaagnus” or “Marieeee” or “ooeees” (a few times we went on for so long and loud they had to wait to start speaking or the next song).
One of the highlights of the night was surely when Chris played the hymn of FC Barcelona as the Joyride intro. It only needed Chris to play the first chords for the people to go wild and start to sing. If you’ve grown up in Catalunya and are a Barça fan you just know this song by heart, and it was simply special. Thanks for that!
The whole show was a constant sing-along and one could simply feel the love in the air. Goose bumps! It is simply one of the best feelings I know, to enjoy the most important band in your life, the one that has always been there since you were a teen, and feel proud to hear so many people share and give that love and share this moment with friends you have known for more than 20 years. The venue may not have been as full as the last time Roxette played in Barcelona, compared to Palau St. Jordi, but the explosion of fun and good wives in the air was there the same or even stronger.
The party went on after the show was over outside the venue. While walking to the car or down the Montjuic hill one could hear people commenting how amazing the concert had been, singing Roxette songs, or even hear some concert-goers blasting Roxette songs from their cars in the traffic jam. The reaction? Happy horns by neighbouring cars, clapping and singing by those who were going down by foot. Party! I heard some even went to a karaoke to sing some more Roxette songs…
Two TV channels (Catalan TV3 and Spanish TVE) were at the place and interviewed some fans before the show, recorded a few moments of the concert and broadcast a short report about the show as well. Check the links below to watch them.
Next gig is on Sunday (17th May) in Bucharest, Romania.
Sleeping In My Car
The Big L.
Stars
Spending My Time
Crash! Boom! Bang!
Crush On You
She’s Got Nothing On (But The Radio)
The Heart Shaped Sea
Watercolours In The Rain / Paint
Fading Like A Flower
How Do You Do!
It Must Have Been Love
Dressed For Success
Dangerous
Joyride
