Last time Roxette played in Halmstad was 5 years ago, so it was high time for them to do their 6th Halmstad Rox show of all time. Many international Roxers thought they would love to see the band playing in their hometown, so some bought a ticket for only this show in Sweden, others are there at more Swedish shows, but definitely didn’t give the Halmstad gig a miss. There were fans from the US, Argentina, Russia, Spain, the UK, Poland, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Switzerland, Austria, Greece and probably more.

The waiting in front of the venue started in the morning and local people were smiling at us during the day, taking pictures of us, posting it on Facebook and wished us a great evening. Lovely! Even the police guys driving by every now and then showed thumbs up for us from their car. SVT, Hallandsposten and P4 Radio were also there with us. They did some interviews with the fans and shot some cuts. (See links in the Articles and photos section.)

This time there were approximately 100 early entrance ticket owners, but only a bit more than half of them showed up by the time the entrance started. There were also fans who didn’t respect those who were waiting there all day and wanted to do the trick at the inlet. Fortunately, Show Security Sweden was there again to support us and Atli (head of the security team) made it clear how the entrance should work and those who wanted to cheat faced a very correct and fair security supervisor. He got applauded by us for his fairness. The whole security team was very polite and helpful this time, too. Thanks a lot again, Show Security Sweden for assisting us! You rule!

Once we were inside, we found our spots in the front rows and couldn’t wait for the show to start. God was good all day and night and there was no rain at all, but sunshine.

Tonight there were 2 support acts. Besides Eskobar it was Mariette who got on stage first. Her performance started at 19:30. We wished for a far much better crowd in Halmstad than the Kalmar gang and already during the support act performances one could see the audience would be more active than the usually reserved Swedish crowds. Mariette and her band did a great job, the Swedes loved them and yes, I think the international fans liked them, too.

Eskobar hit the stage after Mariette. They communicated even more with the audience than in Kalmar and there were more crowd reactions to their songs than in the previous Swedish city. They enjoyed being on stage and playing for us to the full. Daniel even thanked for the cheering to the ”international guests” before performing Freedom. For Someone New they called Mariette back to the stage and performed the song as a duet. It sounded marvellous!

After setting up the stage and instruments for Roxette, those almost 15000 people in the audience couldn’t wait anymore to hear the first tunes of Sleeping In My Car and have much fun during the next almost 2 hours. When Roxette came up on stage you just saw on both Marie’s and Per’s face that it was going to be a fantastic show. Being on home turf, enjoying their home crowd was all written on their faces. The band was in great mood and in top top top shape. Everyone was really on a high. Marie was shining like a real star! She was the pearl and the audience painted their love all over her world. You could feel everyone was grateful to see her on stage and cheered her during the whole concert. Per was very much into being on stage tonight. His presence was incredibly strong with all the Gessle moves and his way of performing. Both him and Marie acted a lot with the crowd, having eye contact with the fans in the front and animating them during the sing along parts which turned out to be very loud tonight. The band was also very active. Christoffer was running around like hell with his guitar, having his cool ”fights” with Per, getting kicked in the ass by Per again. There was now a new funny moment, when Per touched Christoffer’s hat while starting with Crash! Boom! Bang! Magnus was having his Baladas en español moments while charming us with his bass playing. Dea was animating the audience very enthusiastically and she was supporting Marie the lovely way she always does. Regarding Pelle and Clarence, who are always in the background, I just want to mention that without their amazing drum and fabulous keyboard playing this band is just nothing. They enjoyed being there on Örjans Vall’s stage very much.

One of the highlights of the night was It Must Have Been Love with the ’80s band intro from Per, remembering the funny hairdos and shoulder pads from those years, as well as the fantastic bands like Roxette, Milli Vanilli and Modern Talking. Another highlight was Watercolours In The Rain / Paint. Marie and Dea together can only mean a perfect duet!

All the international fans brought their balloons, so there were many and people in the crowd loved playing with them during Joyride. After the song the band went off the stage and the only strange thing during the whole show to me was when there were those appr. 5 minutes while they were away. It felt like the audience wasn’t sure they would come back and wasn’t sure they should be cheering. We in the front were very loud, as usual, but it took some time until the rest of the crowd joined in shouting ”en gång till” or screaming. Fortunately, the band heard it quite well, so they got back to us and oh what a Listen To Your Heart performance it was as the first extra song! How Marie ended it was out of this world!

The uptempo songs, mainly How Do You Do!, She’s Got Nothing On (But The Radio), Dressed For Success and Dangerous got the audience dance and clap along during the whole songs while singing along loud and The Look at the end left the crowd wanting more. When Per said goodbye at the end of the show, he shouted in the mic in Swedish: ”See you soon again! We are very sure about it!”

Marie got 2 heaters on stage and this time it was again BoJo himself who tested if they worked well. In the end only one of them was working during the whole show. But the weather was really nice and rather warm, so we hope that 1 functioning heater was really enough for Marie.

Many in the crowd expected Gyllene Tider to appear on stage as a surprise, but those who are following Roxette and the related artists closely knew that Micke Syd had to be on stage with his Syd & Ekman project at another place, so it was predictable the fab five won’t be seen together in Halmstad tonight. BUT! We weren’t left without a GT tune! Christoffer played ”När vi två blir en” as the local intro to Joyride and it got a fab crowd reaction. We all loved it!

Per after the show:

HALMSTAD UPDATE: Yea! Very nice show at Örjans Vall. Very nice indeed. This place is so cool, just by the water, and tonight our home crowd was in terrific shape. Around 15000 joined the joyride and made a lot of beautiful noise! Vids tomorrow! Cheers, P.

Next stop is Gothenburg on 24th July.

Articles and photos

Hallandsposten:

• fans at Tylösand
• fans during the waiting time
• what fans expect from the evening
• meet & greet winners
• review

SVT during the waiting time
SVT concert cuts

Videos

Sleeping In My Car / The Big L.
Spending My Time / Crash! Boom! Bang!
Crush On You
The Look

Setlist

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 (intro: När vi två blir en)

Extra
Listen To Your Heart
The Look