Tour

Roxette In Concert 2025 – Halmstad – 26th July 2025 – #24

by

The last two shows on the summer tour leg are two sold-out gigs at Brottet in Halmstad. HERE you can watch a video of how long the queue was before the gates opened. So cool!

The support act was Melodic Fluke and they played for appr. 30 minutes at 20:00. Roxette took the stage a couple of minutes after 21:00.

After Sleeping In My Car, Per greeted the crowd and this time he also took the opportunity to welcome all the international fans in English. After that he couldn’t go on with his talk, because the front row started to sing „Olé, olé, olé, olé, Roxette, Roxette”. It was fun!

Mr. G also introduced the newest member of the Roxette family, the fantastic Lena. The crowd cheered her loudly and shouted her name: „Lena, Lena, Lena!” She said she felt great, „who wouldn’t feel great when in Halmstad.”

The setlist was the same as at the second Gothenburg gig, so Wish I Could Fly stayed in the set.

During the band presentation, all members got cheered loudly by the audience. Jonas played a little bit of Iron Man by Black Sabbath as a tribute to Ozzy Osbourne. (Thanks for recognizing it, Daniel Rezmann!)

Christoffer played Ljudet av ett annat hjärta as the intro to Joyride.

Before Queen Of Rain, Per thanked the audience for coming and said he hopes they would have a further nice summer and „see you next time! Maybe tomorrow?” Haha. „Take care of each other, it’s a crazy world out there!”

This show is definitely among the best gigs on this tour leg. It couldn’t top Munich, but it was very close to that. The energy on and off stage was incredible! I must say that Lena is always fabulous, but last night it felt like she wanted to do extra justice to the songs in their hometown. She was outstanding! I think it was her most powerful performance in her Roxette history so far.

In the audience there was Mats Olsson, Sven Lindström, Jan-Owe Wikström. Anders Roos was taking photos during the concert.

Setlist

1. The Big L.
2. Sleeping In My Car
3. Dressed For Success
4. Crash! Boom! Bang!
5. Wish I Could Fly
6. Opportunity Nox
7. Fading Like A Flower
8. Vulnerable
9. Milk And Toast And Honey
10. Almost Unreal
11. Stars
12. She’s Got Nothing On (But The Radio)
13. It Must Have Been Love
14. How Do You Do!
15. Dangerous

Band presentation

16. Joyride

Encore

17. Spending My Time
18. Listen To Your Heart
19. The Look
20. Queen Of Rain

Without a day off, the next and last stop on this tour leg is Halmstad on 27th July! Check out all the autumn tour dates and links to ticket sales sites HERE!

Photos in the article are taken by Patrícia Peres. More photos HERE!

Per after the show:

Halmstad #1. Wow, what a gig! Unbelievable! Thx so much for all your beautiful voices! See you tonite for the summer finale!

Lena after the gig:

Thank you, Halmstad, for an amazing night!!

Roxette In Concert 2025 – Gothenburg – 25th July 2025 – #23

by

Roxette came back for another sold out show in Gothenburg last night. The support act was Dagny again, but this time she and her band played less than on Wednesday. They entered the stage a couple of minutes before 20:00 and played for appr. 45 minutes. Nice, catchy pop music.

Roxette took the stage a couple of minutes after 21:00. As it turned out since the first Gothenburg gig, the new intro music is the intro of Hylands hörna, a Swedish talk show presented by Lennart Hyland, broadcast between 1962 and 1983.

After Sleeping In My Car, Per greeted the crowd and said it’s nice to see so many people. He told the audience that they had a fantastic evening here on Wednesday, but they plan to top it. Mr. G took the opportunity to welcome all their international friends in English. He got a loud cheering for that from the fans who came from all around the world (Argentina, Brazil, Peru, Australia, Germany, Spain, Greece, Hungary, etc.).

Per also introduced the newest member of the big Roxette family, the fantastic Lena. She said she felt wonderful. „I love Gothenburg and Gothenburg loves me, so I feel great!”

There was one change in the setlist. Wish I Could Fly was added after Crash! Boom! Bang! Thanks for putting it back in the set! (So next time, please add Things Will Never Be The Same as well! Haha.)

I lied, adding WICF was not the only change vs. Wednesday. Another change was that the band presentation got back to its original spot. Haha. After Lena dedicated IMHBL to Marie and they performed the song, Micke N-S came to Per to take away the acoustic guitar and brought him the one he should play on the next song. He emphasized that the next song is How Do You Do!. Per laughed and he started the intro teaser to HDYD.

During the band presentation, all members got cheered loudly by the crowd. Jonas played a bit of Paranoid by Black Sabbath as a tribute to Ozzy Osbourne. (Thanks, Daniel Rezmann for recognizing it!)

Christoffer played Ljudet av ett annat hjärta as the wild intro to Joyride.

When Per and Lena came back for the encore, Per said now it’s only them two. Lena said: „yeah, only you and me”. Per added: „and 10,000 more”. Haha.

Before they performed Queen Of Rain, Per thanked the audience for coming and wished them a further great summer. „Take care of each other, it’s a crazy world out there!”

All in all, this gig could really top the one on Wednesday. The flow of the show was wonderful, the band was in top top top shape, Lena was awesome and Per was amazing too. He enjoyed the entire concert to the full, you could see his happy face. So lovely! And last, but not least, the Friday crowd was even more in party mood than the Wednesday audience.

Setlist

1. The Big L.
2. Sleeping In My Car
3. Dressed For Success
4. Crash! Boom! Bang!
5. Wish I Could Fly
6. Opportunity Nox
7. Fading Like A Flower
8. Vulnerable
9. Milk And Toast And Honey
10. Almost Unreal
11. Stars
12. She’s Got Nothing On (But The Radio)
13. It Must Have Been Love
14. How Do You Do!
15. Dangerous

Band presentation

16. Joyride

Encore

17. Spending My Time
18. Listen To Your Heart
19. The Look
20. Queen Of Rain

Without a day off, the next stop is Halmstad on 26th July! Check out all the tour dates and links to ticket sales sites HERE!

Photos in the article are taken by Patrícia Peres. More photos HERE!

Per after the show:

Gothenburg #2. Awesome evening. Fab audience and a band on its toes! Loved it! See you tomorrow in jolly Halmstad!

Lena after the gig:

Amazing night in Gbg!!! Thank you so much!

Roxette In Concert 2025 – Gothenburg – 23rd July 2025 – #22

by

Finally, the Roxettes are on home ground and perform four sold out shows in Sweden. The first Gothenburg gig at Trädgårdsföreningen happened last night.

The stage was built one day before showtime and those who were walking around in Trädgårdsföreningen could witness the whole process. It’s always fun to see how these things work and how many people work on all the details.

On concert day, it started raining cats and dogs at 16:00 and it didn’t stop until a bit after we could enter the venue when the gates opened at 18:00.

On the side screens, there was Rox promo before the show started: promo of the autumn leg of the tour, the two Swedish shows in December and Joyride – The Musical in Stockholm in September. These ads looked quite cool on such big screens.

At the merch stands you could buy T-shirts, hoodies, caps and bags, as well as CDs.

The support act, Dagny – Norwegian singer and songwriter – entered the stage with her band at 19:45 and played for one hour. They sounded very good.

Roxette took the stage at 21:15 and the audience was cheering them loudly, while a new intro was playing during the band’s entrance. The setlist started with The Big L., as usual, and after Sleeping In My Car Per greeted the crowd and introduced Lena as the new member of Roxette. The audience cheered her loudly and Lena enjoyed it a lot, being on home ground.

After Fading Like A Flower, Per seemed to have some technical problem with his in-ear system and went to the side to technician Peter Fredriksson. Even Micke N-S walked to them with the guitars in his hands to see what the problem was. Then Per walked back to his mic while Peter was walking behind him trying to sort things out. Later Per still showed the guys that something was not working properly for him, but anyway, how they were playing and soundwise, we couldn’t recognize anything strange.

There was one point, when I thought it might have distracted him and it was when after It Must Have Been Love PG started the band presentation. It is usually How Do You Do! that comes after IMHBL, but now Mr. G was a bit too early with introducing the band. You could see the confusion on Jonas’s and Clarence’s face, then Micke N-S also came on stage to check what was happening. Well, what can you do? Haha. Chris played När vi två blir en which should have been the intro to Joyride, but this time it was followed by How Do You Do! When Per realized he had changed the order, he first talked to Magnus on stage, then he went to Chris before Chris finished the intro, probably telling him that they would continue with HDYD, so that he wouldn’t start playing Joyride. The setlist had a different flow this way, but I doubt anyone other than the hardcore fans (and of course the band and technicians) realized something was not going as planned. All were professionals and they made this change as smooth as possible. Next time everything will be back in the right order, for sure.

I must mention that the crowd’s – at least the front rows – sing-along to Clarence’s Neverending Love insert during the band presentation was fantastic! Even Per let us sing longer than usual. Haha. Maybe one day the complete song gets on the list.

During band presentation, Jonas played a little bit of Black Sabbath (Iron Man) as a tribute to Ozzy Osbourne. (Thanks for recognizing it, Daniel Rezmann!)

The setlist was 2 songs longer than the festival shows, so the band played 19 hits. It was the first time for me that I had the chance to hear Vulnerable live. I just L.O.V.E. this song! Per was singing it and Lena and Dea joined him in the front and sang their parts. It sounded fab! Then they performed Milk And Toast And Honey. It was lovely to have these two ballads back on the setlist. The last time they played them was in Australia.

Unfortunately, What’s She Like? and Things Will Never Be The Same or Wish I Could Fly were not included, but hopefully, they are back a bit later. Fortunately, Almost Unreal stayed in the set.

The loudest sing along we experienced was during It Must Have Been Love, which of course Lena dedicated to Marie.

Before Queen Of Rain, Per thanked the audience for coming and said he hopes they would have a further nice summer and „see you next time! Maybe on Friday!” Haha.

Setlist

  1. The Big L.
  2. Sleeping In My Car
  3. Dressed For Success
  4. Crash! Boom! Bang!
  5. Opportunity Nox
  6. Fading Like A Flower
  7. Vulnerable
  8. Milk And Toast And Honey
  9. Almost Unreal
  10. Stars
  11. She’s Got Nothing On (But The Radio)
  12. It Must Have Been Love

Band presentation

  1. How Do You Do!
  2. Dangerous
  3. Joyride

Encore

  1. Spending My Time
  2. Listen To Your Heart
  3. The Look
  4. Queen Of Rain

Now one day off and the band is back in Gothenburg for a second show on 25th July! Check out all the tour dates and links to ticket sales sites HERE!

Photos in the article are taken by Patrícia Peres. More photos HERE!

Per after the show:

Amazing start of the Swedish tour in Gothenburg. Had a blast! Sold out (10000). We = happy! Thx for stopping by, dear you! New balls on Friday. Same place, same time.

Lena after the gig:

What a wonderful evening in Gothenburg!! So much fun!! Thanks to everyone who was there!

Roxette In Concert 2025 – Pori – 17th July 2025 – #21

by

Roxette. At a jazz festival. Oh well… Haha. The band rocked the Pori Jazz Festival in Finland!

They took the stage at 22:00 Finnish time and played the 17-song setlist with full force! The audience enjoyed each song, hit after hit after hit. Christoffer played Säkkijärven polkka as the intro to Joyride.

Setlist

  1. The Big L.
  2. Sleeping In My Car
  3. Dressed For Success
  4. Crash! Boom! Bang!
  5. Opportunity Nox
  6. Fading Like A Flower
  7. Almost Unreal
  8. Stars
  9. She’s Got Nothing On (But The Radio)
  10. It Must Have Been Love
  11. How Do You Do!
  12. Dangerous

Band presentation

  1. Joyride

Encore

  1. Spending My Time
  2. Listen To Your Heart
  3. The Look
  4. Queen Of Rain

Now a couple of days off and then the gang hits Sweden! The next stop is Gothenburg on 23rd July! Check out all the tour dates and links to ticket sales sites HERE!

Photos in the article are taken by Mari Pudas.

More photos can be found on Pori Jazz Festival’s Instagram.

Per after the show:

Pori Jazz! Wonderful evening in front of….. I don’t know….. 10000 …. 12000 people. Maybe more. Doesn’t matter. Lovely evening, love in the air. Always loved Finland!!! See you soon again!!!

Lena after the gig:

Thank you Pori Jazz Festival! Amazing night!

Interview with Per Gessle in Hallandsposten about the Roxette In Concert tour

by

Jan-Owe Wikström did an interview with Per Gessle for Hallandsposten almost ten years after Roxette’s last concert in Halmstad. Per brings the Roxette band for two gigs at Brottet.

Then it was with Marie Fredriksson, now he performs with Lena Philipsson.

Lena has grown into the role in a fantastic way. Marie can never be replaced, but Lena really does it in her own way so we are not a cover band. In addition, Jonas (Isacsson) is back, who is very much Roxette’s guitar sound.

15,000 people saw the concert on July 22, 2015 at Örjans Vall, which would be Marie’s last with Roxette at home when the following year she was forced to step down due to health reasons and then tragically died on December 9, 2019 from the consequences of her illness.

To keep Roxette’s song collection alive, including four US number-ones, Per went on tour in 2018 under the name Per Gessle’s Roxette. But it was in connection with the recording of the duet album Sällskapssjuk that he realized that Lena Philipsson was the right person to take the place next to him on stage.

Since then, Roxette has had two concerts in South Africa, nine in Australia and ten in Europe before the tour reaches Sweden; Gothenburg on July 23 and 25, and Halmstad on July 26 and 27.

Out in Europe, Lena is a completely unknown name, but the fans have received her in a fantastic way. But here at home, Lena is a big name in her own right, so it will be very exciting to see her meet her home audience.

I mean, there’s a big difference between her today and the first gig in Cape Town, and that’s how it should be. Because it’s on stage that you grow together as a band and learn how everyone behaves, what roles they take. You can never work that into rehearsals, and it’s the same with the social side – that it works there too.

Then we have deliberately included some songs that Marie never sang live. “What’s She Like?”, which is very strong in the musical, is one that Roxette never played live before. Likewise “Vulnerable” – mostly because I thought it was boring to sing, but the audience loves it, hahaha.

During the journey, he has also received confirmation of how strong Roxette is as a band with sold-out concerts in most places.

Yes, we are reaching a new audience, which is fantastic. In January 2024 we had 10.4 million unique listeners a month on Spotify, now we have 17.8 million, which is almost a doubling with 70 million listens every month.

To Jan-Owe’s question what he thinks the reason behind is, Per replies:

On the one hand, it’s a treasure trove of songs that shouldn’t really be possible to fail with. On the other hand, we represent a kind of music that is becoming increasingly rare, because pop music is no longer made in the same way, with a bridge before the chorus or a key rise. And that benefits people like me – especially with the song catalogue that we can build on.

I saw a documentary about Brian Wilson from The Beach Boys who recently passed away. It would have been impossible for him to have a hit today, when most things are artificial and programmed with many songwriters for each song. And it will get worse with AI.

When Roxette reaches Sweden, it will be standard concerts, while in Europe it has been about festivals where Roxette has in many cases been the headliner.

It’s different to play at festivals. Partly because it’s a shorter set, and partly because the audience is there for many different artists, unlike when it’s pure Roxette concerts where everyone has come for us. So if you play a lesser-known song, some people go and buy beer.

Initially, the second Halmstad gig was the end of the tour, but it is already clear that there will be a continuation in the autumn with gigs in Linköping and Stockholm in Sweden, among other places in Europe.

Yes, for each gig, five new offers appear, so the schedule will be filled afterwards. Because if you want, this is just the beginning of the continuation…

Pics by Åsa Gessle