Per & Co. played the 5th gig on tour in London last night. How cool is that to play at a venue, Eventim Apollo (earlier Hammersmith Apllo, even earlier Hammersmith Odeon) that was an important place in one of Per’s biggest idols, David Bowie’s life. On the facade of the building, above the entrance there was written in huge red letters: PER GESSLE’S ROXETTE and there was a tour poster on one of the entrance monitors as well.
It was a seated show, so people didn’t have to rush inside. The doors opened at 7 pm, the support act started at 7.30 pm. Support act was Lee MacDougall again. He was added last minute, on 12th October. Great chance for him to play his first London show in 5 years. The audience liked his music a lot and his anecdotes were fun too. He said the first Roxette record he got in 1993. His sister is a big Roxette fan. His parents would buy them gifts to give them to each other at Christmas. His parents gave him the Joyride album to give it to his sister, but after he put the cassette on and it blew him away, he just couldn’t give it away. He created a plate writing Roxette (spelt wrong) and Joyride on it with glitters and all colorful stuff instead. When he gave it to her sister she was really excited because she thought she knew what’s inside, but then she was plain disappointed, she started to cry. Haha. A story to remember in a fan’s life.
After Lee left the stage, the technicians were setting up for Per and his band. The setlist stayed the same as on the past 2 shows.
Setlist:
1. The Look
2. Milk And Toast And Honey
3. Crash! Boom! Bang!
4. Dressed For Success
5. She’s Got Nothing On (But The Radio)
6. Spending My Time
7. I’m Glad You Called
8. Small Town Talk
9. I Have A Party In My Head
10. It Must Have Been Love
11. Opportunity Nox
12. The Big L.
13. Fading Like A Flower
14. Doesn’t Make Sense
Band presentation
15. How Do You Do! (in a medley with No. 16)
16. Dangerous
Encore
17. Queen Of Rain
18. Joyride
Encore 2
19. Listen To Your Heart
20. The Sweet Hello, The Sad Goodbye
It was the second seated show on tour. I wouldn’t have been too sure about the London crowd standing up, hearing they are more reserved, closer to Swedes in behavious when it comes to standing up at shows, but actually everyone were up on their feet already from the beginning, when the gang played The Look. So it seems, seated shows are indeed among the best ones and you can use the seats for your jackets and bags, but you won’t use them to sit.
After The Look Per mentioned this is a classic venue, used to be called Hammersmith Odeon and this is the place where David Bowie killed Ziggy Stardust in 1973. He said let’s hope nobody dies here tonight.
When Per said he’s been writing songs for more than 40 years, the audience cheered him. There are tons of Per Gessle, THE SONGWRITER fans in the UK. Speaking English as their mother tongue they just love how differently Mr. G expresses himself in their language.
PG asked the audience if they knew the lyrics to the songs, please sing along. And they did so. People stayed standing also during the ballads and partied to all uptempo songs.
Doesn’t Make Sense ended with Christoffer’s madness in London too, but he was on a high during the whole concert anyway. Actually, the whole band were in top shape. The crowd cheered Helena a lot, they liked her performance very much. The intro to HDYD worked great. DFS was huge too, probably there was an even bigger party than for OppNox here. IMHBL was of course a song Per couldn’t give a miss and even if there were 72 songs on his mind for the first time during the rehearsals, but the list was reduced, IMHBL had to stay. The loud sing-along was guaranteed.
One thing I expected – I’m quite sure I wasn’t alone with it – didn’t happen. Actually, I wished to hear Small Town Talk as a duet with the original artists, I mean Per and Nick Lowe. And since Nick is English, I thought it was possible to see him on stage in London. Well, he didn’t appear there. I saw he had a show in Canada on October 11th, so maybe that’s why he wasn’t there. Still not at home. Fingers crossed we can hear this duet one day live. STT sung by Per and Christoffer worked extremely well in London anyway.
Before both encores after the gang went off stage, the crowd was clapping heavily and were happy to have the ladies and gents back on stage again and then again.
Some thought it was a guilty pleasure gig for them, some went for nostalgia, some to see the talented songwriter on stage. One thing is sure: all of them had much fun in the audience. PG and the band had a blast too.
LONDON. Oh yeah, such a treat to play the old Hammersmith Odeon. Remember reading about it all the time when I was a kid getting my Melody Maker every Wednesday. And boy, did we have a blast. Super crowd and band in top shape. We’re only five gigs old but are almost grown by now!!! Thanks everyone for showing up and singing along. London, you never disappoint!!! Lots of love from P&Co.
All pics in the article are taken by Niall Corcoran. Thanx for sharing!
1. The Look
With DFS, the gang speeded the tempo up and Per said we’re still young. Oh yes, they are and we are too! It got confirmed during SGNO as well. The intro to it increased the excitement and we partied on. I was standing on the left side of the stage again and Chris and Ola, as well as Per were so close to us when they came to the front to play their guitars. Once Mr. G kicked in the air with his left leg and it felt like there was 1 cm between his leg and my camera. The cam survived. Haha. After the song Per said it’s fantastic he is here, ”thanx to you guys”.
After IGYC, Per said ”dank u wel” I think (it means ”thank you”) and in reply to that someone shouted ”tack så mycket”. Per was happy both about his own and the shouting guy’s ”thank you”-s. Then Per talked about his Nashville experience before he started playing STT, which of course sounded wonderful at Ancienne Belgique. We definitely need it on a live CD, don’t we? 😉
Before DMS Per wanted to say something about the Party Crasher album, but then he said he shouldn’t. Magnus said we’d really love to know and then Per said Magnus blogged about it on www.puke.com. The crowd laughed out loud. The song by the way sounded awesome again and Chris became the definite hero of the night. Poor guy was rocking on his guitar so much that even something got broken on it and it flew over the audience and Christoffer’s hand was also bleeding like hell. Jakob, Christoffer’s technician tried to wipe the blood off with a towel, but it didn’t help much. The guys tried to find some plasters and were trying hard to stop the hand bleeding. Per asked, ”did that make sense?” Haha. Mr. G started introducing the band. Started with Chris who was still bleeding, then moved on to Ola, then Andreas. That was funny, because PG said he called 5 drummers, but 4 couldn’t make it, so that’s how Andreas ended up in the band. Haha. Then Mr. G introduced Clarence, who produced almost every existing Roxette song, even the hits and the B-sides. Then Magnus, Malin-My and Helena were introduced too. And then Per turned to the audience and said: ”And a wonderful crowd, thank you!” In the meantime, Chris got his plasters. Per asked him if he can continue and Chris said the show must go on. The crowd applauded him and shouted woohoo.
During HDYD we had a blast again, the intro teaser worked fine. Then came Dangerous and off they went. The audience didn’t stop clapping or shouting, not even for a second, however, it took a bit longer time now for the band to come back on stage to play the first encore, QOR and Joyride.