Germany

Per Gessle’s Roxette – Berlin, Germany – 22nd October 2018 – #9

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The show in Berlin happened in Admiralspalast. It was a seated gig again and oh what a gig it was! So it really seems to be guaranteed that a seated concert can’t go wrong on this tour. I mean when it’s planned to be seated from the beginning.

The support act was Lee MacDougall as on every other German date. He was great in Berlin too and we had much fun listening to his stories and music. After he finished his unplugged song and stepped back, he tumbled over Per’s mic stand and said ”Sorry, Per!”. Haha.

Anders Roos was there and set all his cameras around the venue. The real deal started a bit after 21:00, with no setlist changes.

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

The show hasn’t even started when everyone was already on their feet, so we could rock to The Look which started with Per counting ”Eins, zwei, drei, vier!” Helena was on a high too and she even hi fived fans in the front row. Woohoo! Mr. G said it’s always a pleasure to be in Berlin and he played there with Roxette in 2015. Of course, many from the audience were there 3 years ago. Magnus too. PG said he would do a deep dive into the bucket of Roxette songs. He also said he sneaked in some of his solo songs, as we know him. He asked to sing along if we know the lyrics, to help them out, they love that.

When Per said thank you after MATAH, someone shouted from the crowd ”you’re welcome”. He laughed. Then he let us know that the most expensive pizzas you can find in the world are still in Capri, where Roxette went to record CBB.

Before DFS Per asked if we were ready for them speeding it up a bit. Yeah! Party party party that got even wilder during SGNO. Andreas’s drum solo ending was so cool in Berlin too. After the song Per said ”it felt good!” Oh yes, it did! Ah, as per the drums… Now it seems you can buy a drum head at the merch shop, customized to the actual city. There is a design related to the city, there is the Per Gessle’s Roxette logo and the name of the city on it. What else? It is signed by all band members and Per himself. From what I know, it was sold in London first, but there seems to be only 1 drum head like this per each city. Let us know if you know someone who got hold of the drum head in any other town. 😉

Before SMT Per talked about his good day in 1990 when he woke up in the morning, had nothing to do, but found a note on his piano saying ”Hello, you fool, I love you”. It was written by his wife, then girlfriend and he thought it was kind of cute, it just had to be a song. So he wrote Joyride and then he was exhausted, ate Swedish meatballs, watched 3-4 Ingmar Bergman movies just to get in the mood to write another song. Spending My Time. Helena singing it, she got a huge applause from the audience.

STT was loved by the audience. Chris got his well-deserved extra applause on it.

Then came Swedish hillbilly IHAPIMH and the party never ended until the show was over.

Per mentioned he started with 74 songs for the tour and asked the band to learn those songs. Magnus said and they did. Every verse, every chorus, every intro, every outro. It’s hard work. There was only one song Per wasn’t sure about playing, but it turned out to be Magnus’s all time fave song besides Kraftwerk’s The Model and the collective works of Karlheinz Stockhausen. IMHBL was the top. Per said Magnus is weird. The sing-along was the strongest on this song last night.

Then came the OppNox-TBL partytime. Nothing can beat it! Per and all the band members were like Duracell bunnies during both songs! Love Ola’s rocking solo in OppNox and also there is a tiny little detail I adore, an Ola-Magnus move in TBL after ”lonely at night”. So cool! After these 2 songs Per said ”that felt good too” and ”danke schön” and was cheered by the crowd.

The usual ’90s discussion was next between Per and Magnus. Magnus joked he had a flat in Prenzlauer Berg (part of Berlin) and spent all his life at the Panorama Bar, it was years and years of party. Then Per saved him, he got a phone call to come back to Sweden and play with Roxette and he said yes. Per said ”one saved soul”. Then Mr. G mentioned the next song went up to No. 2 in the US, didn’t make it to the top, but it’s a nice one from Joyride. FLAF was it, of course and Helena did great. What I love very much in this version of Fading Like A Flower is how Malin-My is plucking the violin. I don’t know if this is the right expression though. It’s when she’s not using the fiddlestick, but her fingers. Sounds wonderful!

DMS was the song of Duracell bunnies too. A real highlight on each gig. When we met Chris at the airport (flying from Warsaw to Berlin), we of course had to ask him how his hand was doing. He said it’s OK. In Brussels his hand was bleeding because of the fact that some part of the guitar fell off and under it there was a metal part which hurt his hand, since he didn’t pay attention when that part of the guitar flew away. Then in Warsaw he had no clue what hurt his hand why it started bleeding. He had quite deep wounds on both fingers that were bleeding during the concerts. He said the plaster isn’t really good for him, because then he can’t really hold the guitar pick. What’s your guess? Was his hand bleeding in Berlin? Haha, a real rock star!

After Per did the band presentation, he said ”that’s it and everything else is on computers”.

HDYD was also party on top. Its intro worked completely fine in Berlin too.

Before the first encore, the crowd didn’t stay quiet. We wanted more! And we got more! First QOR, then Joyride in which I love the intro part where Chris and Per are approaching each other and playing around.

No silence during the 2nd break either, the audience wanted the gang back on stage and oh they came back. Per thanked for it and said ”so many songs, so little time”. They performed LTYH that was awesome and the audience made their voices heard. Then as usual, TSHTSG closed the event and left us with the earworm again.

The only problem I had was with the lights. I don’t know what happened, but most of the time not the right happening and people were illuminated on stage. Sometimes Per’s face was half in shadow half in light, horizontally… Things like that. Sometimes it stayed even dark on stage. Strange. I hope the light technicians will do their job right next time, because those who were on the balcony last night also said that there were parts which they didn’t see clearly, because of being too dark.

Per’s comment after the concert:

BERLIN: Oh yea, back in Germany. Wonderful crowd in a beautiful venue. Thanx so much for all the singalongs + balloons + good vibes. We had a blast. Always special to play Berlin. Hope to be back soon with more music for you Berliners!!! Lots of love from P&Co.

All pics in the article are taken by Patrícia Peres.

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Per Gessle’s Roxette – Hamburg, Germany – 11th October 2018 – #3

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Hamburg, Germany, the best show so far on tour! And that was a seated gig! If all seated gigs are like this, I’m very much into them. Once the tour was announced and we could see there were several seated concerts, we thought OK, the setlist would probably be too slow, full of ballads, so the seats might be because of that. Then we saw the setlist at the first show and realized there is a great flow in the mix of ballads and uptempo or midtempo songs. So when we reached the first seated concert in the schedule, we got curious how it would work out. Should we stand up? Should we stay seated? What is the rule at the venue? Are we allowed to stand up anyway? If we stand up, when should we? First world problems, I know…

The show in Hamburg was held at a concert hall, a beautiful building. The soundcheck started at appr. 5 pm again and those who met Per in town before he left for the soundcheck got lucky, because Mr. G was in a very nice mood, stopping to sign stuff and fans could also take pictures with him.

Since it was a seated gig and we had our fixed spots, no one was really queueing in front of the venue. Once we arrived we could take it easy, enter the building, check out the merchandise, grab some drinks, chat with other fans. That’s a big advantage of seated events.

This time the support act was again Lee MacDougall. Great guy, really. He was much fun on stage in Hamburg too and he even changed 2 songs in his short setlist. Well, this is how people can get to know his music. He mentioned that in Leipzig he said he is the biggest Roxette fan in the UK, but after the show a guy from the UK, called Huw stepped to him and said that actually HE is the biggest fan in the UK, so Lee corrected himself in Hamburg and said that since Huw is here, he can only tell he is the biggest fan in England.

Already during the support act it was a bit strange to be sitting. I was sitting in the front row and the stage was a bit too high for looking up there without having problems with your neck after. So the thought of standing up got stronger and stronger each second. Haha. Another thing that made me think we should stand up was that hey… the setlist starts with The Look, c’mon! How could you stay seated during The Look?! I mean even the royal family showed it long ago that it just doesn’t work. 😉

Even if Per said after Leipzig that they ”got a few more things to check out in Hamburg” regarding the setlist, there was only a slight change. Listen To Your Heart got moved to the 2nd encore, but otherwise the running order stayed the same. 20 songs. After talking to some of the band members later, it seems to stay like this, since 22 songs both Per and them all found too long. Oh well… ask a fan anytime, we wouldn’t have enough of a 30-song-long setlist either. Let’s hope that at least it stays 20 until the end of the tour and it doesn’t get even less, as it happened during last year’s tour.

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

So, back to the first world problems of standing up, when the gang hit the stage a bit after 9 pm and started playing The Look, appr. 5 seconds passed and the whole concert hall was standing. Woohoo! That defined the mood of the crowd and I think it guaranteed the success of the complete show. Also, it probably gave even more energy to the band. 150% energy on and off stage, I can tell. And the level dropped to 120% during the ballads. Haha. Most of the crowd stayed standing during the whole gig, but also those who ”sat down” were sitting on the upper edge of their seats and only during the ballads and talks in between the songs. Once an uptempo song came, everyone got on their feet again. Great vibes! It was fantastic being part of that crowd!

After The Look, Per talked to the audience while drinking his ginger tea and said he didn’t play in Hamburg since 2015 and asked who was there. Tons of people shouted in the crowds they were there. Nice.

He moved on digging in that deep box of Roxette songs and they played 2 ballads, Milk And Toast And Honey and Crash! Boom! Bang!. Both of them sounded great and the audience liked them a lot. After the ballads, Per tried to throw his acoustic pick to the crowd, but it got probably stuck to his hand so it landed on stage very close to himself. It happens. We were laughing and while Micke N-S brought Per his guitar he plays during speed-up song Dressed For Success, he was kidding him showing how he throws a plectrum. DFS was loved, as well as She’s Got Nothing On! Constant party mood in the crowd and madness on stage! Even 1 drumstick of Andreas flew to the edge of the stage at the end of the song. Per said he is getting too old for this. Someone in the crowd shouted we too. Haha. Per heard it and said you too are definitely getting old.

In the talking before Spending My Time Per mentioned he wrote 2 songs in one afternoon. The first one was Joyride, then he had some tea and biscuits and then he wrote the next one. The crowd sounded very happy to hear SMT and Helena got applauded loudly.

2 more ballads came, I’m Glad You Called and Small Town Talk with Chris in the 2nd verse again. Pure magic!

Showing how fab the crowd was, when the band started the intro to I Have A Party In My Head, the audience started singing Opus’s ”Live Is Life”, not just the Na Na Nana Na part, but the complete chorus. Per laughed and pointed at the audience while looking at the band, then talked into the mic saying this sounds great by the way, however, this coming song is from the Son of A Plumber album. He was glad that the crowd recognized that one.

It Must Have Been Love was next, Magnus’s favourite track (including The Beatles, The Eagles, Fleetwood Mac, Frank Zappa and even Milli Vanilli). Per said he tried to avoid to play it, but Magnus said he has to play it, he kills Mr. G otherwise. Per said he knows and it’s scary. Good they played it. The audience burst out into a loud sing-along.

Then came the party section again, with Opportunity Nox and The Big L. and these 2 songs rocked big time in Hamburg too. Per said ”getting ready for the weekend, right”. The ”bringing me down to my knees” part of TBL was funny, because since we had a bigger space in the front between the stage and the front row without fence or anything else, we could really get down to our knees. Almost. Haha. This time I was on the left side of the stage and loved how Ola and Malin-My came to the front to rock their instruments during TBL.

Before Fading Like A Flower, Per and Magnus talked about the ’90s again. Magnus said he doesn’t just remember the ’90s, he IS the ’90s. Wherever the ’90s went, he was there before. Haha. How Helena sang the song in Hamburg sounded a bit different vs. the first 2 gigs. I would say her version got more powerful from getting the energy from the wonderful vibe of the gig. Fantastic!

Doesn’t Make Sense was a blast again. I love the whole song. Beautiful lyrics, great PG vocals, how he sings ”nose” is still killing me and the ending where Chris and Andreas go crazy is one of the greatest parts of each show.

In the band presentation Per mentioned he is extremely lucky to have this band with him. Magnus he found in a flea market, he said. Haha.

How Do You Do! and Dangerous were very much welcomed by the audience to have some more party. HDYD had the teaser intro this time and the crowd started singing the song before Per started it. No one could believe the gang went off stage after these 2 songs. The audience didn’t stop clapping and shouting, waiting for them to come back on stage.

Then the band members appeared one after another and Per came back as well to play Queen Of Rain and Joyride in the first encore. Since the audience was whistling, Andreas tried to whistle using his hands too, but wearing gloves, it just couldn’t happen. It was funny though. I love how Per and Chris interact during the intro to Joyride. After these two songs the gang went off stage again, but the audience went crazy to have them back. And so they came to sing 2 more tracks in the 2nd encore.

This time Listen To Your Heart was moved to the 2nd encore, but the closing song remained The Sweet Hello, The Sad Goodbye. Helena was very happy to receive the love of the crowd after LTYH. Loud applause she got. And TSHTSG, well… keeps on playing in my head… again and again. Tütütütürütü. Awesome version!

Per closed the show with saying ”hope to see you again very soon”. Let’s see what happens, but with such a band and such an audience anything can happen! 😉

Sven Lindström was there in the crowd too. He liked the show and said he will probably see another one Sweden.

Åsa wasn’t there at the gig. It would have been great if someone filmed this concert for a DVD actually. Hard to top, but there are more gigs to come, so let’s see!

Per’s post after the show:

Hamburg tonite. Oh yeah! Thanx everyone for showing up and singing along. Wonderful feedback on every song, love that! Extra special thanks for the Party In My Head-intro (yaknowwhatImean…theunmentionablesong….). Have to come back to Hamburg again and again, it’s addictive!!!!! I’ve had two great days here, checking out Anton C’s fab exhibition and just enjoying myself in the sunshine. Brussels tomorrow. Rise and shine everyone! Lots of love from P.

All pics in the article are taken by Patrícia Peres.

More photos & TV reports:

NDR: 1, 2

 

Per Gessle’s Roxette – Leipzig, Germany – 9th October 2018 – #2

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Last night PG & Co. performed in Leipzig, Per coming back to town for the first time since 2011, when Roxette played there. The gang arrived to the venue at appr. 5 pm for a short soundcheck where they mainly rehearsed The Sweet Hello, The Sad Goodbye, but we could also hear SGNO. So we knew these 2 songs have a safe place on the setlist last night again. But what’s with the rest? We were curious.

This time the support act was Lee MacDougall, the guy who would have been the support to Roxette in 2016, when the tour got cancelled. Good he had the chance this time. He is a great musician with a nice voice, so we enjoyed him performing. His sense of humor is fun too, so it was a great 30 minutes, him being on stage. He got introduced to Roxette when he was appr. 8 years old, via Baywatch, Pamela Anderson. There he heard The Look in a commercial and got hooked. He says he is the biggest Roxette fan in England. We will see him several times on tour, since he is the support in Hamburg, Vienna, Zurich, Berlin and Cologne as well. Just a funny moment: Lee goes unplugged on one of his songs and while he walked around the stage with his guitar, he stepped on PG’s already sticked-on-the-floor setlist and stayed there for a while. Haha. Thank God the songs to be played were still visible after.

Per and the band hit the stage at 9 pm. Different running order of PG’s shirts meant different running order on the setlist too. Slightly different though. They skipped The Finest Prize for reasons I can’t understand and also Silver Blue. Silver Blue’s spot got occupied by Doesn’t Make Sense and the encores were changed a bit too.

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
19. Listen To Your Heart

Encore 2
20. The Sweet Hello, The Sad Goodbye

This time there were some technical hiccups, which somehow made us feel the gang got a bit distracted. Even some word changes in the lyrics happened by Helena. All this caused a bit lower energy level on stage in Leipzig than in Prague, but the audience’s loudness and sing-alongs made Per & Co. very happy and they got confirmation again that what they are doing is just fab.

I love how the band members interact with each other on stage, changing their places, kidding each other, singing towards each other, etc. They are so good together!

I was happy The Look stayed first on the setlist, because it really gets you into the Roxette party mood right from the beginning and it can define the whole show. I think I didn’t mention it in my Prague review, but there is a little pause in The Look, which adds to the excitement.

Per talked to the crowd after they finished the song that he was there in Leipzig 7 years ago and it’s fantastic to be back. He also told they would do a big dive into the box of Roxette songs. He also sneaked in a couple of solo songs just for good measure.

Before Crash! Boom! Bang! Per told they went to record the album in Capri, where the world’s most expensive pizzas and the cheapest wine are sold. They took full advantage of that. The song sounded wonderful and the crowd appreciated it with a loud applause.

During She’s Got Nothing On, Helena and Malin-My came to the front and animated the audience, it was cool. They were full of energy, and also Chris was going wild on his guitar and involved Ola in the madness too. A real party song this one is.

Before Spending My Time Per mentioned he wrote 2 songs on one crazy afternoon in the spring of 1990. One of them was Joyride. The audience shouted woohoo and Per said not bad actually. Helena got a huge applause for performing the song.

This time during I’m Glad You Called there seemed to be less acting. But it’s always a bit strange to see Per without his guitar. He sometimes doesn’t know what to do with his hands while singing without holding any instruments. It’s fun though when he is demonstrating the lyrics. And while Per and Helena walked away from each other for the non-singing part, we could enjoy the music Malin-My, Chris and Ola played for us. This song was a success too. Per commented after the song, it’s music for old people. Haha.

Small Town Talk was a highlight in Leipzig too. Wonderful to hear it live and Chris joining Per in the duet is just amazing. Can’t get enough of it!

During the intro to I Have A Party In My Head the audience burst out into loud clapping. It sounded awesome! Really a great crowd it was! Per said he is always so surprised that people recognize tracks from Son of A Plumber, because he doesn’t. The audience burst out laughing.

Mr. G told the crowd he tried to avoid playing the next song, but it’s actually Magnus’s favourite, so he couldn’t skip it. Magnus said he would be very disappointed and he would hit Per if he didn’t play it. Yep, it was It Must Have Been Love’s turn. The crowd loved it!

It was lovely that the setlist remained the same at this point, when Opportunity Nox and The Big L. followed IMHBL. Party time guaranteed!

Before Fading Like A Flower they, I mean Magnus and Per were again joking about the ’90s, talking about their favourite bands from that decade. Besides Roxette, Milli Vanilli popped up, as well as Beagle and Brainpool.

Doesn’t Make Sense was very welcomed by the audience, they were clapping a lot during the whole song and it seems it wasn’t working only in Prague that Chris and Andreas went wild on this song towards the end, but in Leipzig as well. It rocked big time!

During the band presentation Per started with their own little guitar God, Chris (sweating plus drinking after DMS), Ola who plays everything with strings on, even shoes, Andreas the drummer, Clarence got a long long applause, being the producer of Roxette songs, Magnus the stand up comedy guy, the most talented Malin-My and last but not least, Helena Josefsson on vocals.

The crowd didn’t stop clapping and shouting when the band went off stage and it took some more time for the gang to come back. They certainly enjoyed the audience’s reaction. It was so loud and wonderful! The first encore now started again with Queen Of Rain, but as Doesn’t Make Sense was moved, Joyride and Listen To Your Heart came to the first encore. Joyride started with a tiny little intro, where Chris was standing in front of PG with his guitar and they were kidding each other. It was much fun! After the song PG said ”well, we can play all night…”. Oh well, you know, Per, you really could! We wouldn’t mind! 😉

After LTYH, the crowd was loud again, wanting the whole gang back on stage and so they came and played the last song. The 2nd encore now contained The Sweet Hello, The Sad Goodbye only. When Per and the band came back, someone in the audience shouted ”gott nytt år” (= happy new year) , so Per repeated it in the mic. Then someone else shouted ”tack” (= thank you). A real Swedish lesson. Haha. TSHTSG, what can I say? It’s absolutely awesome how this song sounds now live. I could listen to it 24/7. Actually, this one is playing on one’s head for a long time either after the show during the whole night or the day after. Top earworm!

Åsa wasn’t there this time, so we’ll see how many videos were shot, if any at all. We could already see a backstage video Per shared. Let’s hope we can see more of such vids.

As you read Per’s comment on the gig, it makes you curious what changes they plan in the setlist in Hamburg. Fingers crossed the number of songs gets back to 22 at least and won’t be decreased by even more songs.

Per after the show:

Leipzig = Wow!!!! Haven’t been in this city since 2011 and hey, do I love to play here! Great crowd as always.

We tried a different running order tonight to get the perfect flow. Got a few more things to check out in Hamburg. That’s the way it should be, every gig should be different. That’s why we play everything 100% live. No tricks.

Thanks everyone for showing up and making that typical Roxette noise!!! Love it! See y’all soon again. Cheers, P.

All pics in the article are taken by Patrícia Peres.

More photos & TV reports:
regioactive.de
radioSAW.de
Brisant report (starts at appr. 27:40)

 

More tour dates for 2016 announced

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roxette_in_drammen_04
Photo: Patrícia Peres

Here’s a list of the summer schedule so far:

30.06 Zimny Stadium O, Bratislava, Slovakia
02.07 Burg Clam, Klam, Austria
15.07 Sparkassen Park, Mönchengladbach, Germany
21.07 Zitadelle, Berlin, Germany
23.07 Schlossplatz, Emmendingen, Germany
09.09 Ice Hall Arena, St Petersburg, Russia
11.09 Crockus Hall, Moscow, Russia

They were pouring on us like rain today – more tour dates for the neverending RoXXXette tour. In the middle of the night German newspaper “Rheinische Post” announced on their website that Roxette would be back in Germany in 2016 – with four concerts in total and one of them in the county of Nordrhein-Westfalen. The show is in SparkassenPark in Mönchengladbach on 15th July.

Some hours went by and we got one more date – surprise: Roxette will also be back in Russia for another show: On 11th September they are on stage in Moscow, Crocus Hall! We waited for the official press release all morning, but nothing happened, until Per kind of confirmed the former dates by sharing the news and telling us that there was more to come SOON.

More hours went by and more dates came – two more shows suddenly popped up on the LiveNation website: 21th July, Berlin, Zitadelle and 23th July, Emmendingen, Schlosspark.  All German shows are open air. The tickets for Emmendingen seem to be on sale from TOMORROW already – that’s what the LiveNation site says.

At the same time the second Russian date appeared: 9th September, St. Petersburg.

20 minutes after we shared the news on our Facebook page the press release from “Team Rox” finally found its way to Facebook and mailboxes. Surprise – they actually only confirmed the dates we had found during the morning hours. The press release clearly states that “more dates are to come”.

And here we are, still waiting for the dates for South America (shows which are supposed to be during April) and hopefully some dates for North America and/or Canada. And in case the “Rheinische Post” was correct there is still missing one date for Germany.

Exciting times!

Update: Added date in Austria.

 

Roxette XXX Tour – Berlin, Germany (O2 World) – June 27 – #43

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After more than a month break (since Prague) on my tour agenda, I got my proper dose of Roxdrug again. I always wanted to see Roxette live in Germany. In the country where they had their first successful steps outside Sweden and which is still a huge market for them. There is no tour that doesn’t include several German gigs. This time Germany gets 9 shows all in all. Impressive, isn’t it? I was curious about the atmosphere, how the crowd lives together with the band, etc. One could see several videos from earlier concerts and there were louder and more reserved shows, but being there in person, experience the happenings live is always different. After seeing vids from Cologne some days ago, I really prayed for an at least as fab crowd as the Cologonians were. Then Hamburg happened where Marie and Per, as well as the band were in top top top shape and the crowd was very loud from the first minute till the very last. So I started wondering what I could expect at the third German show after 2 wonderful gigs in this country. My prayers were in good hands tonite! What an incredibly amazing concert it was!

Marie probably got a cold, because she was coughing several times, even instead of one rocky ”that’s where I’ll meet you” in Stars and when BoJo came up on stage before The Heart Shaped Sea, when he usually brings Marie something to drink, now he brought a tissue as well. Poor girl! We all hope she gets over this cold very fast. BUT: don’t think this stopped her from being totally awesome! She gave 100% into her singing and her voice sounded extremely fab! Well, OK, some lyrics were missing, but she was again so professional getting over it and just smiling at this fact. She was all smiles during the whole show and flirting with cameras during the photographers’ time. She looked in the eyes of fans in the front which we all loved so much! She enjoyed the whole gig to the full! She said more than once it was ”great to see so many people here tonight!”

Per was in extreme bouncing mood, sometimes running across the stage, sometimes jumping in circle and our charm school guy had thousands of sexy moves and flirting looks tonight. He was also ”kicking” Chris in the ass at least 3 times during their guitar playing.

Chris was very much on a high with his absolutely fab guitar solos and the local song he played kicked ass! The audience loved him!

Magnus was quite reserved and he didn’t look like he was in a good mood during the first few songs, but he started acting with us from Dressed For Success and we loved it so much. It felt like he started really enjoying the show since DFS. During their usual discussion with Per, when they talk about him being a viking and he was lip-syncing to Agnetha in ABBA songs, he mentioned that he saw Agnetha and Frida on the Berlin Pride and it was nice. Regarding his fave album he said: ”You in the front already know which my favourite album is!” Of course, we know it’s not Have A Nice Day, but Baladas en español. He did a little voting exercise asking the crowd to put their hands up which their fave album was. He asked Look Sharp!, Joyride and Baladas en español and the latter one won! But of course, Per insisted on playing a song from Have A Nice Day and yes, it was Crush On You. Damn hot performance it was!

When Per started with the teaser to How Do You Do!, the crowd went c.r.a.z.y. and we started singing the song ourselves. Per was so amazed and satisfied his facial expression was priceless.

Before It Must Have Been Love Per said to Marie: ”Huh! How are you, Marie?” She replied: ”It’s sweaty!” Per told her: ”It’s very warm, isn’t it? This is Germany. It’s much warmer than Sweden.” Then they started to play the once-crappy Xmas song (which is so not true that it has ever been crappy) and Marie missed a part of the lyrics and looked at Per for help, but he couldn’t help her out. They both were smiling like hell and Per sticked his tongue out. Both of them were so cute! It didn’t really matter that they couldn’t go on with the lyrics, we helped them with our singing along anyway.

Before Dressed For Success Per said: ”OK Berlin! It’s Saturday! It’s party time!” And they made the whole arena catch the Saturday night fever, stand up on their feet and dance!!! The crowd was a fantastic one from the beginning with their singing along and clapping, but from DFS and then on they never stopped partying!

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Flying Christoffer & Magnus. Photo by Patrícia Peres

There were many international fans (besides the German Roxers of course, there were fans from Australia, Hungary, Poland, Norway, Spain, Bulgaria, Russia, etc.). We were prepared with many balloons, so when the magic word left Per’s mouth, all of them were up in the air and the crowd enjoyed playing with them so much.

When the band left the stage after Joyride, the crowd went crazy again, craving for more. They didn’t keep us waiting so long and when they came back on stage, Per shouted in the mic: ”So, are you ready for more?” and they started playing Listen To Your Heart. Marie while singing the word ”goodbye”was waving like really saying goodbye. Well, soon it was the end of the gig with an incredibly energetic The Look.

When waving goodbye at the end of the show, they just couldn’t believe how fantastic the concert was and the crowd didn’t want to let them go off the stage. Marie and Per were standing there much longer than usually, waving and Marie was blowing many kisses to the audience. Then they started walking and turned back before they left the stage, to wave one last goodbye. Marie even said to Per ”it’s amazing!” It was actually amazing x 3! People leaving the venue, talking to each other said ”What a concert!” Tons of them.

Since the next show is in Dresden without a day off and the trucks should have been packed fast, Micke N-S already started packing the stuff during LTYH. The short videos during the concert were filmed by Micke Lindström tonight.

Anders Roos, the fab photographer of the upcoming Roxette XXX tour book was taking tremendous amount of pictures both of the crowd and the happenings on stage, as well as during the building up the stage, etc. He already has several thousands of photos from which it is probably very difficult to choose only some that would fit in the book. This time he even asked Micke N-S to fix a camera onto Magnus’s Blue Swede Sex Machine. Would be great to see the result one day.

Per after the show:

BERLIN UPDATE: Danke!! What an evening! A truly unforgettable Saturday in this mighty city. What a crowd! So much energy we forgot that this was the third show in four days!!!!! Unbelievable to be on stage with almost 11.000 Roxers in front of us!!! Thanx a million. Still got an andrenalin rush!!! Wow. /P.

No rest for the wicked! Next stop is Dresden in some hours (28th June).

 

Articles and photos

Instagram: 1; 2; 3; 4; 5; 6; 7;

bz-berlin.de
Marie and Per getting O2 World Berlin’s present
Berliner Morgenpost

Videos

Spending My Time
Dressed For Success & Dangerous
It Must Have Been Love
Fading Like A Flower
Part of The Look & Joyride
Instavideos:
Sleeping In My Car
Spending My Time
It Must Have Been Love
Listen To Your Heart: 1; 2
The Look: 1; 2

 

Setlist

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Photo by Patrícia Peres

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: Pack die Badehose ein)

Extra:
Listen To Your Heart
The Look