Vasa

Show No. 20. 20??? Ojojoj, the second to last gig on this fantastic Per Gessle tour. The concert in Vasa, Finland happened at a festival. First this festival was planned to be held at another venue, but due to the high interest, in June it was moved to a bigger open-air stadium.

When we arrived at the venue late afternoon, there weren’t too many people, so the first 2 acts didn’t get a big crowd. There were 5 acts before Per and Per being the headliner was to start only at 22:00.

During the 3rd act, One Desire, it started raining, but fortunately, it lasted only for some minutes. However, it was freezing cold. Felt like winter and I’m not joking. These summers in the North are fabulous for all who are coming from warmer countries. But also tough for those who live in Sweden or even Finland.

BoJo and the technician guys started preparing everything before the last act before Per. Andreas came checking the drums of the last act (The Heartbeat Band) before PG. He was even filming them during their performance and singing along to their songs.

To set up the stage, the crew needed some more time and Per and the band could start the show at appr. 22:20. I felt sorry for them, because they of course had their stage clothes on and all those clothes were rather made for summer. But they were all on a high, so I guess the adrenalin inside heated them well. They were all smiles during the whole show. We loved it!

The crowd that became far much bigger (appr. 3500 people) for PG than for the acts before him, they also thought it’s better to move not to feel the cold. So they were active. Mostly with singing along, shouting, whistling and clapping though, but waving and jumping during the uptempo songs were also happening.

 

It was again Kung av sand when the rain started falling, but we didn’t get our ponchos out, just kept our fingers crossed it would go away very soon.

Between the songs Per talked to crowd in Swedish. Vasa is a bilingual city and Swedish is the first language of one third of its population. So it made totally sense. Other acts also talked to the crowd in Swedish.

Malin-My was translating the lyrics of Här kommer alla känslorna (på en och samma gång) into gestures towards us showing she was also sad that the tour was coming to an end.

During the band presentation everyone got a huge ovation. When Per and Magnus had their stand-up comedy talk, Magnus mentioned that Finland is an independent country since 100 years this year and for this reason he thought they could talk a bit about Finland’s history. Per said ojojoj, Kimi Räikkönen. Haha. Not much he knows about Finland’s history it seems. Magnus asked PG who his favourite Finnish historical person was from the three he mentioned. The first 2 names didn’t ring a bell for Mr. G, but the third, Tumppi Haaranen did. He was a tour manager on the Roxette tour. So he chose him as his fave Finnish historical person.

Chris played Säkkijärven polkka as the inro to The Look (not the first he played this in Finland) and the crowd went crazy for that. They were clapping so loudly. The Look was a highlight again. Chris stayed psychedelic during the whole song and there was a part during his and Per’s guitar duel when Chris was ”walking” on his knees ”attacking” PG. It was hilarious!

Andreas went so wild with the Sommartider intro that at the end of it he threw both sticks into the crowd just after the last tact. The song turned out to be awesome – as usual.

Per offered Småstadsprat as a night snack and with that the concert ended. It started raining again during the closing song and it was raining cats and dogs after the gig.

19 songs! We didn’t expect such a ”long” festival setlist, so we were absolutely positively surprised and loved the fact that Per could finally decide for a longer set on a festival where HE is the headliner and no one else is playing after him, so he didn’t need to keep a short time of playing. Much appreciated!

At the very end, there were fireworks organized by the promoter. Sadly, it was behind the stage, so we didn’t see much of it.

Per after the show:

VAASA, Finland. Oh yea! Truly amazing crowd considering the pretty chilly evening. Loved that my solo stuff went down so well. Thanks everyone for singing along and showing us a good time. Promise to come back. Love it here! Kiitos & tack så mycket. /P.

All photos in the article are taken by Patrícia Peres.

Setlist

1. På promenad genom stan
2. Vilket håll du än går
3. Juni, juli, augusti
4. Det hjärta som brinner
5. Segla på ett moln / Första pris
6. Min plats
7. It Must Have Been Love
8. Honung och guld
9. Kung av sand
10. Här kommer alla känslorna (på en och samma gång) / Flickan i en Cole Porter-sång
11. Ljudet av ett annat hjärta
12. Spegelboll
13. Gå & fiska!
Band presentation
14. The Look (with Säkkijärven polkka as intro)

Encore:
15. Varmt igen (with Queen of Rain as intro)
16. Tycker om när du tar på mej
17. Joyride

Encore 2:
18. Sommartider
19. Småstadsprat

Videos:

Juni, juli, augusti
It Must Have Been Love: 1; 2;
Gå & fiska!
Sommartider: 1; 2;

Articles, pictures:

Pohjalainen: 1; 2;
Vasabladet: 1; 2;
Hagstrommedia.pic.fi
Österbottenstidning
Samuli Keskitalo Photography
Forth Photography