Festival

After Stockholm, it was time to travel up North and perform at a festival in Östersund. Per Gessle and the band arrived by private jet, as expected. Mr. G shared a pic of the whole gang in front of the jet.

We arrived in the afternoon and realized that not too many hardcore fans chose to take part in the festival. I could count them on one hand. While changing our tickets to wristbands we could hear the technicians’ soundcheck and there was no band soundcheck that day.

Gates opened at 19:00 and while we were queueing to get in, we met Linnea Henriksson (you surely remember her at least from the GT tour in 2013 when she was the support act). We said hi and she recognized us and told us she would join us in front row for Gessle. Haha. She performed at 19:30 at another stage. A pity that it wasn’t she who performed on the main stage before Per. We got José González instead, who is an Argentinian-Swedish indie folk singer-songwriter and guitarist from Gothenburg. He had a bigger fan base there, very young people who knew all his lyrics and were singing along. That seemed to be a promising crowd for PG as well.

We had rain showers during the day, but by the time Per & Co came up on stage, the rain stopped falling. However, there was a little shower again from the middle of the show, but who cares.

People who live at the main square in Östersund could watch the whole gig from their balconies. How cool is that!

The crowd consisted of very young people, but they knew the lyrics and were singing along loudly to almost all songs. During Tycker om när du tar på mej, when Helena was singing, the crowd started singing parts that Helena didn’t sing. It sounded absolutely awesome! The most dancing, jumping and clapping along was to Sommartider and The Look, but yeah, Joyride as well. Actually, the audience was open to any songs and they loved each of them unconditionally. Even the security guys were dancing with each other! So lovely! People were cheering Per loudly: ”Gessle! Gessle! Gessle!” And also before the encore there was ”En gång till!” and ”Oh-oh-oh-oh-oh” as well. Loved it! So even if we had the shortest setlist that night, it was a fantastic gig!

Chris went so wild during Joyride that probably a string on his guitar cut his hand, so it started bleeding. You can see it on the group pic. Hopefully, all is well with his hand now.

So, the shortest setlist. It could have been 18 songs even, but Puls (which would have worked very well with the Östersund crowd) and Småstadsprat were cut off. They were there on the original setlist though… Actually, Pet Shop Boys came after Per & Co, but only at 00:30 and even if they had a lot of technical stuff to apply on stage, our gang would have had the time to play at least 2 more songs. Btw, the crowd stayed loud during Pet Shop Boys as well. They were really a fab one! I wish such crowds for each gig!

Anders Roos was there at the festival and he took thousands of pictures again.

Per after the show:

YEEHAA! What a great reception we got at The Storsjöyran Festival in Östersund. Magic crowd and somewhat decent band! Loved it! See y’all next time! Like tomorrow! /P.

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. It Must Have Been Love
7. Kung av sand
8. Här kommer alla känslorna (på en och samma gång) / Flickan i en Cole Porter-sång
9. Ljudet av ett annat hjärta
10. Spegelboll
11. Gå & fiska!
Band presentation
12. The Look (with När vi två blir en as intro)

Encore:
13. Varmt igen (with Queen of Rain as intro)
14. Tycker om när du tar på mej
15. Joyride
16. Sommartider

Videos:

Juni, juli, augusti: 1; 2;
Ljudet av ett annat hjärta
The Look: 1; 2;
Joyride: 1; 2;
Sommartider: 1; 2;
A boomerang video by Josef Hermansson (Space Station 12)

Articles, pictures:

ÖP (subscribers only)
Rockfoto