Lena Philipsson

The Roxette gang performed at Biggesee Open Air in Olpe, Germany last night. It was a full-length show on a wonderful Friday night with a great, loud, sing-along crowd and a hot band on stage.

The setlist was the same is in South America earlier this year. Christoffer played Das Altbierlied as the intro to Joyride.

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. Church Of Your Heart
9. Almost Unreal
10. Stars
11. She’s Got Nothing On (But The Radio)
12. It Must Have Been Love
13. How Do You Do!
14. Dangerous

Band presentation

15. Joyride

Encore

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

Next stop is Emmen, The Netherlands on 13th June! Tour dates and links to ticket sales sites HERE!

Photos in the article by Sandra Knospe

Pics by Biggesee Open Air can be found HERE.

Per after the gig:

Hey! Thanx for an amazing Friday at the Biggesee Open Air Festival in Olpe, Germany! Had a blast with a beautiful crowd + powerful band = me happy! And Lena in top shape! Have a fab weekend ya’ll! Holland next week!

Lena after the show:

Thank you everyone in beautiful Olpe Biggesee för the gig yesterday! A lot of rain right before gig start, but then suddenly sun again. Like magic. I felt for you standing there, wet and cold, but you were an amazing crowd!! Still in a good mood!! I had a lot of fun meeting you! Hope to see you soon again!

A little more than a month after South America, the tour continues in Europe. The first gig took place in Hanover at the NDR 2 Plaza Festival last night.

Schedule:

15:00 ClockClock
16:00 Blue
17:30 The BossHoss
19:00 Roxette
21:00 Peter Maffay

The crew had to set everything up very quickly for the band, but they were well prepared. There was also some confetti to clean up after the The BossHoss show (Micke N-S is a pro, haha), so that Roxette could take the stage at 19:00.

The stage was extremely high and deep, so from the front rows, Clarence and Dea were less visible from one side, while Norpan and Jonas were less visible from the other. You could only see Per, Lena, Christoffer and Magnus in full when they came to the front of the stage.

Fortunately, Lena often came to the front of the stage with her handheld mic, but Per – singing from a mic stand – couldn’t come forward as often. Thankfully, Dea brought him closer at one point, when she, Lena and Magnus were already at the front. They were clearly having a lot of fun, and so were we!

There was much less talking between the songs, but of course Per introduced Lena and asked the crowd to sing along – whether they knew the lyrics or not. And, of course, Lena dedicated It Must Have Been Love to Marie. There was no band presentation, and only a very brief intro to Joyride, but Christoffer played Soul Deep as the intro to She’s Got Nothing On, which sounded fab!

The weather forecast predicted rain and thunderstorm during the night, exactly when Roxette were scheduled to play. The organizers had already informed us in advance where to go and what to do in case that happened.

During the intro to Joyride, Per went to the side of the stage to discuss the setlist with BoJo, so he may already have been informed that the set would need to be shortened because of the weather.

Then, when we saw the organizer approaching the stage, we thought they were going to stop the concert. BoJo tried hard to signal to Per and the rest of the band that they should wrap up the show. He spoke to Christoffer as well. When Per noticed, he nodded to indicate that he got the message.

Towards the end of The Look, BoJo and the organizer were already standing at the side of the stage, urgently signaling that the show should end immediately. As a result, there was no extended outro and the band didn’t have a chance to take a bow. The organizer came to the front of the stage and announced, ”Das war Roxette, danke schön!” while the band was walking off.

Right after they left the stage, the thunderstorm arrived and the area was evacuated. Part of the people who still wanted to see Peter Maffay an hour later went inside the arena next to the open-air venue, whle others left the festival grounds in the heavy rain, strong winds and lightning. Safety first!

The setlist would have been at least a little longer if the thunderstorm hadn’t hit Hanover. It felt as though there would have been time for at least two more songs, but as it was, the show lasted only an hour.

It was a lot of fun anyway, and it was definitely a different experience from previous shows. However, I prefer Roxette to be the main – and preferably the only – act. If it’s a festival, I’d rather see them as the headliners, because the audience is more focused on them.

The good thing is that this was probably the shortest gig of the tour, so from now on the setlists should be longer. Some of the upcoming shows will still be shorter than standard concerts, but we will also get some full-length Roxette concerts this summer, where they are the main act.

Setlist

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

Next stop is Olpe, Germany on 5th June! Tour dates and links to ticket sales sites HERE!

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

Per after the gig:

Thanx for an amazing Friday evening in jolly Hannover. Feels fab to be back on the road, folks! The band is in top shape and eager to please!!!! See you all over Europe this summer!

Lena after the show:

Summerfestival-gig in Hannover on Friday. We ended it up just a tiny little bit sooner to escape the dark clouds and stormy winds that suddenly appeared on the sky, risk of thunder and lightning forced us to a quicker goodbye than normal. But we had a great time with you all!

Without a day off, the gang arrived in Trondheim to perform their last show on the autumn leg.

The doors opened at 18:00 and a local support act, Stage Dolls started the evening at 19:00. They played until 19:45 and after the crew set up all the necessary elements, Roxette took the stage at 20:45.

It was a fully seated show. The stage was so low that you could see the ground of it even from your seat in the front row. We tried our best for the gig so that it wouldn’t remain seated. We first stood up for Opportunity Nox – hey, it was the last time we heard this song this year, we couldn’t keep our asses on our seats –, but except for us, the whole arena remained seated. Our next try was Stars and we stayed standing during She’s Got Nothing On as well, but still nothing. Then to our biggest surprise, when we sat down for It Must Have Been Love, the whole arena stood up. Haha. What was that? It took quite some time for the audience to get into the real Saturday night mood. They stayed standing for the two uptempo songs after IMHBL, but sat down again for the band presentation and Joyride.

We brought some balloons for the last party and released them during Joyride. 4-5 of them were still in the air in the back of the arena during the second half of the song and people were playing with them.

Chris played In The Hall Of The Mountain King as the intro to Joyride.

Åsa came to us before the concert started and asked us if it was OK if she used the empty seat next to us so that she could film from there. Of course! Sometimes she left that seat and filmed from the sides. Then there was always someone who wanted to occupy her seat, but went away again when Åsa came back.

A couple of weeks ago Lena posted a story with a picture of Chris, Jonas and Magnus when they were standing behind them (Lena, Per and Dea) during Vulnerable, playing their guitars like mariachis. She put sombreros on their heads digitally. Now that became reality and the guys put on sombreros for that part of the show. Haha. It was so cool!

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

Now comes a little longer break, 4 months before the gang hits South America. Check out all the so-far-known 2026 dates and links to ticket sales sites HERE!

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

Per after the gig:

Amazing tour finale in Trondheim! See you soon, folks!