Warsaw

Per Gessle’s Roxette – Warsaw, Poland – 21st October 2018 – #8

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The 8th gig on tour turned out to be a fab one! The communication between Per & Co. and the audience was so far the best! People started queueing in front of the venue quite early and by 4-5 pm there were already more than 40 people waiting. The doors to the club opened only after 6 pm.

There was no support act at the show and Per was to start at 19:30. Before he could get up on stage, he had 2 interviews (1 for a Polish TV program, 1 for TDR) and a fan meet & greet. The latter one started at least half an hour later than planned and it was quite short, since there was not much time left after the interviews. A bit after 19:30 the gig started.

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

Once the gang entered the stage you could hear the crowd was there to have much fun. They were loud already at the very beginning. The Look was a perfect opening song in Warsaw too. After it ended, the audience didn’t stop shouting ”Per Gessle, Per Gessle, Per Gessle!” Per thanked it and said he was at the same venue 9 years ago. He asked the crowd if anyone else was there too and many shouted yes. Then Magnus and Chris also said they were there too and Per replied it’s good he wasn’t there alone. When he mentioned he sneaked in a couple of solo songs in the setlist, someone in the audience started singing Gå & fiska! PG laughed and the guys in the band started to play the song. A very short version of it though. Per asked the crowd if they know the lyrics, please sing along, they love that.

After MATAH, Helena got a huge applause and the crowd shouted ”Helena, Helena, Helena!” She was so happy about it. Then the crowd went on cheering Malin-My, calling her Malinka. Haha.

CBB became a loud sing-along and ”Helena, Helena, Helena!” was also cheered at the end of the song. Helena formed a heart from her hands and showed it to the crowd and also thanked for their kindness in Polish.

DFS and SGNO made the crowd party. We were very much into these 2 songs. At the end of SGNO Ola and Chris came to the right side of the stage to go wild. Christoffer’s hat fell on to the stagefloor and Per came to pick it up while Andreas was putting his drumset on fire. After they finished SGNO, Per put the hat back on Professor Lundquist’s head. That was cool! Per was amazed by the crowd reaction and said it was getting hot up there on stage. Oh well, I can tell it was hot off stage too.

Before SMT Mr. G asked the crowd if they are happy: Yeaaah! and if life is good: Yeaaah! Then he said he had a good day in 1990. He woke up one morning and found a note on his piano saying ”Hello, you fool, I love you”, so he had to write a song. He didn’t want to, but he did. Then he had lunch, Swedish meatballs, then he was full and watched 3-4 Ingmar Bergman movies and then he had to write another song. SMT. Helena got her loud applause here too and the loud sing-along was present during this song as well.

IGYC had a longer intro this time, because Mr. G stood there at the fan to get some fresh breeze. The audience loved the song.

Before STT Per told the crowd he had this dream for a very long time to go to Nashville and work with his core people and with local musicians. After Malin-My’s violin intro, Per stepped to his mic and started to sing his part, but he was in a bit too early. At least it sounded so. Anyway, it turned out to be wonderful again. When Chris stepped in, he got a huge applause from the audience. As Per said, they record all shows, so we will for sure get this PG-Chris Lundquist duet on a live CD one day.

Then came the Swedish hillbilly music, IHAPIMH. Per said it was released on Son of A Plumber which came out in ”2005-6-7-8-9-10”. Haha. The audience almost didn’t stop clapping during the whole song and after the song shouted ”Gessle, Gessle, Gessle!” He said: ”Thank you, you’re very kind!”

Before IMHBL Per said when they started rehearsing, he presented the band a DAT tape. He wasn’t sure if anyone knew what a DAT tape is. There were 72 songs he wanted the band to learn to play. Magnus said, they didn’t have a DAT player. That’s the problem, but Per sorted it out, he copied them to cassette. So the next song is Magnus’s fave song of all time. Even better than The Beatles’ Yellow Submarine. IMHBL sounded fab and the crowd’s loud sing-along was heartwarming on this one too. Helena thanked the audience in Polish.

OppNox and TBL were successful party songs tonight too. The ”Gessle, Gessle, Gessle!” shouting started again. Per went to Chris with his towel in his hands and by the help of it, he provided Chris with some fresh air. Helena did the same with Malin-My. Someone in the crowd shouted: ”We love you, you fool!” Per smiled and replied: ”I heard that before! I have a family.”

FLAF brought another ’90s stand-up comedy talk by Per and Magnus. Magnus said he doesn’t really remember the ’90s because he was born in 1991. Of course… Haha. After their discussion Per said: ”Can’t live with him, can’t kill him!” FLAF became a huge sing-along song as well. After she finished FLAF, Helena told the crowd in Polish that it was beautiful and thank you. Per asked if we were having a good time and he got a loud ”yeah” and a ”we love you, Per” as a reply.

Then they started DMS which – as usual – rocked big time. Would you be surprised if I said that Christoffer’s hand was bleeding again? Gosh, this guy is amazing! He wanted to throw his pick he played on this song to the crowd, but because of the blood it sticked to his hand so landed not so far from him. Jakob came and took Christoffer’s guitar and took care of his bleeding hand too.

The coolest band presentation happened in Warsaw so far. Each band member got his and her name shouted by the audience many times one after another. E.g. ”Ola, Ola, Ola!” They were happy about it. Per said Clarence produced most of the Roxette songs, all the hits, all the flops. When Per finished the introduction with Helena and the audience shouted ”Helena, Helena, Helena!”, someone shouted: ”And who are you?” LOL! Everyone laughed! Christoffer said: ”His name is Per Gessle.” The audience shouted ”Gessle, Gessle, Gessle!” Then he looked at his monitor where MNS probably wrote him how to say ”thank you” in Polish, but Per was uncertain. Magnus also encouraged him he should tell those words and Helena too. Then Per said he’s not sure how to translate ”thank you”. The crowd shouted ”dziekuje” and then Per read up the words from the monitor ”dziekuje bardzo” (”thank you very much”). MNS showed him thumbs up an the crowd cheered him. Well done, Mr. G! Haha. Per said it’s like being in X Factor. Magnus said ”You’ve got the talent!” Per said to the audience: ”Let’s see if you’ve got the talent!” And he started the intro to HDYD. Of couse, we’ve got the talent! We started singing the song and then partied hard to HDYD and Dangerous.

When the gang went off stage, some started singing Sommartider. Then the shouting and clapping didn’t stop and ”we want more” was heard in different languages, in Swedish too. The band came back for the first encore and played QOR and Joyride. There were quite some balloons and some of them are simply landed on stage. Joyride was fun, Magnus danced a lot during the song and actually, he was on a high during the whole gig.

When PG & the band came back for the 2nd encore, Per thanked for the wonderful evening. LTYH became another sing-along song, while TSHTSG became a clap-along closing song. BoJo put his boogie shoes on and he was dancing on the side of the stage during TSHTSG. It was too cool! After the band took a bow and another and another and another, the crowd started shouting ”Dziekujemy, dziekujemy, dziekujemy!” (thank you). And Per threw the last picks off his mic stand to the crowd.

Wonderful it was indeed! The whole show! As we heard, the gig was filmed. What a good choice to film this one! Let’s see if we get to see the result of it. A DVD would be perfect!

After the concert I bumped into 2 Swedish guys from Örebro and they said they were 6 and came to Warsaw for the weekend. The Per Gessle concert was a good excuse for them to organize this trip. They will probably attend a Swedish show too, because they liked what they saw and heard. Very cool!

Oh one more thing. Per had a photo session with Anders Roos in the old town of Warsaw in the afternoon. Let’s hope those pics were taken for a fat tour photo book. 😉

Per’s words after the concert:

OH MY GOSH!!!! Warsaw – we love you! What a gig! Outstanding crowd + a decent band = neverending love!
Had such a great time. Hope Anders Roos managed to get some pix from this extraordinary gig. Anyway, we got the recordings!!! See ya next time. Berlin tomorrow. No rest for the wicked! Love, P&Co.

All pics in the article are taken by Patrícia Peres.

More photos:
muzycznahiperprzestrzen.pl

Roxette rocked the National Stadium in Warsaw

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It turned out already some days after Roxette’s very successful Warsaw gig in June that they would play in Poland’s capital once again in 2015. What also turned out quite fast is that the concert was announced as a corporate event, the 25th anniversary of Inter Cars. The company planned to celebrate with a huge party in the National Stadium in Warsaw, inviting their best clients. Besides other Polish artists, they thought Roxette is the band they should invite as well for such a milestone celebration in their history.

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Pic by Patrícia Peres

The venue is quite huge. Approximately 60,000 people fit in the stadium, so we thought there would surely be enough space for some hardcore Roxers even if they are not clients of the company. We tried to move every stone to get invitations, contacted the headquarters in Warsaw, checked the possibilities with their affiliates in several cities in Poland, as well as the local Inter Cars affiliates in other countries. We even tried our best to contact clients of Inter Cars to find out if there are any invitations left to offer them for Roxers. Trying to contact the company as a fan or as RoxetteBlog, from Poland or from abroad didn’t help. They seemed to be strict and refused any queries, insisting on the fact that the gala was for their clients only. To cut a long story short, some Polish fans – Basia Konarzewska and our RoxBlog team mate Tomasz Wysocki among them – managed to obtain some client invitations, so a handful of Roxers could attend the party in the end. We’re all very grateful to those who helped. Some of us could even manage to change their seated tickets to standing ones, however, there was a golden circle, which was too big and only VIP people could enter it. So most of the hardcore fans ended up either in the front of the normal standing area or in the seats at different sectors more in the back of the stadium. Anyway, even Christoffer said they were not allowed to invite guests, so they were surprised we could manage to get tickets and hearing this we were proud of that.

When the gig was announced we thought the band would play 2-3 songs or maybe 5-6, because they were announced as “the icing on the cake”. Then there were rumours it might be a complete concert, so we started hoping for the festival setlist. The agenda Inter Cars shared some days before the event confirmed there should be a 1.5-hour-long Rox show.

Before the gala started, Per went up on stage to check it at around 18:45 for 1 minute. While he was going backstage, some staff members or Inter Cars employees stopped him to ask for autographs. He of course signed what they wanted.

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Pic by Patrícia Peres

Not long before the celebration started at 20:00, a bat flied in and tried to find his way out desperately. We hope he managed. Before Roxette we saw 7-8 other Polish artists (bands and dancers), as well as some company-related interviews and we heard company speeches, too. The stage set looked awesome and for a 25th anniversary it was a very impressive gala. Actually, the stage was so high that in the VIP golden circle you couldn’t see all parts of it very well, but all other standing and seated spots were too far from the stage. So I couldn’t say there was a perfect spot in the stadium.

What we realized already during the other acts was that there were many cameras filming the crowd and the stage from different angles. There were also huge screens, so at least everyone could see what was happening on the stage.

Each perfomer had the time they had left shown on a monitor in front of them, but several artists didn’t finish their little gig (the plan was 15 minute per performer) in time. Because of that Roxette got on stage 20-25 minutes later than planned, some minutes after 23:00 (instead of the planned 22:40). We started worrying about the setlist being cut shorter. The Roxette crew got 20 minutes to rearrange the stage and they did a good job, as usual. During these 20 minutes all countries’ representatives where Inter Cars is present were called up to the stage. We would have loved to see the crew doing their job instead though.

Our time had come and Marie, Per and the band kicked off their performance with Sleeping In My Car. Despite the huge Inter Cars stage set with all the screens they used their own stage set, the one from the XXX tour, keeping only the 2 huge screens on the 2 sides of the stage. They used 3 blinds from the 5, which was a bit strange, because the stage was really huge, so 5 would have fitted more. But it still looked OK.

There was a 1-month-long break between the last show and yesterday’s appearance, so Marie had her time to rest and you could see it did her good. She was in a very good mood, smiling all the time, walking quite good with BoJo up and down the stage. Her voice was the most powerful during Listen To Your Heart. The ending of the song sounded fantastic again.

We discussed it’s maybe because of the huge stage or because of the fact that we saw the whole thing from a larger distance, but Per wasn’t as active as usual. He was of course bouncing from one part of the stage to the other and animating the crowd, doing his circles during Joyride for example, but even the guitar fights with Chris seemed to be less than we got used to.

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Pic by Patrícia Peres

What we missed very much by standing / sitting further away from the stage is definitely seeing their faces, their facial expressions from a closer distance, because watching them on the screens is not the same. Being far away from the stage you might think you can’t miss a thing, because you see the whole stage at once, but actually, you seem to miss more by looking at the screen on the left, then realizing something else what’s not on the screen is happening on the stage, so you look there, but the faces are tiny, so you try to check the screens again if they show Marie or Per with a close-up… Oh well… This distance is not really for the hardcore fans. You totally miss the emotional part, not mentioning the eye contacts.

The sound of the stadium wasn’t the best of all. Roxette sounded good, but sometimes the sound echoed, which was quite strange. Another crappy thing was that the crowd couldn’t be heard at all. Even if we were singing along Spending My Time, no one could hear it. The band didn’t hear us, so they got confused how to move on with the song. After the usual singing along part was over, Per didn’t really know if he should say anything to the mic if it was fantastic or what, because he didn’t hear anything. Marie got also confused and didn’t start singing again. Per realized something wasn’t OK, so he walked back to Marie, miming her how the song goes on and then she got it and SMT was continued after long seconds of silence. It was a bit better at faster songs, but our It Must Have Been Love sing-along was the same silent and Per again wasn’t sure about telling anything about it and our nanananas during The Look or ”She rox you like a baby” during Joyride wasn’t the same powerful as at any other shows. Have to mention the balloon thing. We had some with us, but it took like 3-5 seconds for them to disappear after we released them. The wider crowd didn’t have a clue what to do with them.

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Pic by Patrícia Peres

Regarding the setlist, they skipped 3 songs from the latest wider setlist: Crash! Boom! Bang!, The Heart Shaped Sea and Watercolours In The Rain / Paint. Fortunately, they kept Crush On You in. Woohoo! It was funny enough that we didn’t realize CBB was left out until we had a nice chat with Jakob (Christoffer’s technician) after the show. We insisted on they left out only THSS and WITR/Paint when he said there was one more song. We looked at each other… the hardcores… it can’t be, then he said CBB and we face-palmed ourselves… Haha. Well, we were happy about hearing the more powerful songs, skipping some slower ballads.

There were some funny moments when for example Marie asked the crowd before It Must Have Been Love: ”Are you feeling good?” There was a little crowd reaction confirming we felt good, but certainly it wasn’t too powerful. Marie anyway said into the mic: ”Good!” Then Per started with his usual talk before IMHBL (hairdos, shoulder pads etc.), but this time out of the blue he added Samantha Fox after Milli Vanilli and Modern Talking as ’80s bands. The cutest was when before Marie started singing the song, they held each other’s hands. Too lovely. You can watch the talking and the hand-holding moment in THIS video.

The catwalk wasn’t used very often, but Per and Chris went there doing their guitar fights sometimes. One of those ”fights” you can watch in THIS video, the ending of She’s Got Nothing On (But The Radio). Dea and Magnus went to the catwalk only at the end of The Look, while Chris went off the stage to play the guitar down there at the golden circle part of the stadium.

The catwalk was also a ”pick catcher”… Most of the plectrums Per was throwing landed on the catwalk ground, so they never reached anyone. 1-2 picks flew to the VIP crowd, not too many.

By the way, we tried to go to the golden circle part of the crowd area, but the security team didn’t let us go, not even for the last 2 songs. The strange thing was that the show being a corporate gig and that all other acts didn’t come back after they left the stage, a huge part of the crowd wasn’t prepared for Roxette coming back, so they started leaving the stadium. When Marie, Per and the band came back, we looked behind us and there were only ”a few” people left in the standing area and the seats were almost all empty in the back… Oh my… It was an interesting experience. Never mind, we enjoyed the last 2 songs very much regardless.

At the end Marie thanked twice saying: ”Thank you!” ”Thank you very much to all of you!” and Per said they hope to meet us somewhere down the road and take care of each other. By this time there was much smoke in the air, because the organizers were already being prepared for the laser show, so we couldn’t see Marie and Per for the last goodbye wave very well… The laser show was useless anyway, because only a few hundreds of people stayed until the very end of the show.

Per says there were 25-30,000 people, but the organizers said there were appr. 45,000 in the arena and seeing the crowd, knowing the max. capacity is appr. 60k, we thought 45k fitted indeed.

Åsa was there filming and she mostly filmed at the VIP area. Micke Lindström came to film to the normal standing area, but filmed the stage only as we could see. Looking forward to some videos to appear on Roxette’s Facebook page. There might be some dancing to Rox songs vids, because many in the VIP area were dancing with each other. Nice, but this way they totally missed what was happening on the stage.

Per’s comment after the corporate boogaloo:

WARSAW UPDATE: Oh yeah! Very late gig in front of approx 40.000* beautiful people at the National Stadium in Warsaw. We certainly had a blast. Great vibe and most folks knew all the songs. Thanx Warsaw, thanx Poland. We love to play here! Hope to see y’all soon again. RoxAir back to Sweden. /P
PS. Pic by Micke N-S

*Per wrote “approx 25-30.000 beautiful people” first, but some hours later (after he shared this article) he edited the text of his post and the number became 40.000. /PP

The next stop is… Who knows? In a post sharing this company event Per teased us with a comment that there might be something else announced for this year:

Yep, could be the last Rox concert this year. Might pop up something else as well. Will let you know, folks! /P.

What’s that? A New Year’s Eve party maybe? No clue, but it would be awesome! We just hope the location will be easy to reach and tickets will be easy to obtain. Soooo, Per, share the date and place with us asap, please! 😉

Setlist

Sleeping In My Car
The Big L.
Stars
Spending My Time
Crush On You
She’s Got Nothing On (But The Radio)
Fading Like A Flower
How Do You Do!
It Must Have Been Love
Dressed For Success
Dangerous
Joyride (intro: Maya The Bee theme song – same as on the June gig)

Extra
Listen To Your Heart
The Look

 

Is it time for a Roxette musical?

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Hallandsposten (Jan-Owe Wikström) did an interview with Per in relation to the Roxette concert in Halmstad tomorrow. It’s going to be the 6th time they play in Halmstad. After 1988, 1989, 1991, 1994 and 2010 tomorrow it’s time for them to play again in the band’s hometown. It will be their first time at Örjans vall though.

According to the interview, the tour will continue in 2016, however, nothing is planned after the September concert (company gig) in Warsaw. Per says since they turn 30 next year, the tour should last until then and they haven’t played South Africa, Asia, North America and South America yet on this tour. At the same time it is Marie’s health they are depending on, how much she can do.

PG
Screenshot is from the making of video of The Look 2015 remake

Regarding the tour Per mentions it’s quite typical nowadays that as no artist can earn money on album sales, they go on tour. When Roxette played in Madrid, there were posters from Katy Perry via Mark Knopfler till the Foo Fighters. Since there is this big competition, he says it’s fantastic that they still have sold out shows and can sell 8000-18000 tickets per concert. In Halmstad there will be approximately 15000 people in the audience. The plan for the 5 concerts in Sweden was to sell 50000 tickets altogether and it seems it will work.

Per tells Jan-Owe the tour is one of the reasons why the new album is delayed. The other reason is the EMI – Warner merger. There are too many new people and Per wants to work with people he likes and who respect their history and the new songs. 5 songs off the new album are ready and as Per says, it is 65-70% of the total album. This would mean the album has 8 songs? Hm.

With Addeboy vs. Cliff, who mixed the 2015 remake of The Look, Per wrote some songs together. He says to Hallandsposten that it’s hard to find people who are talented in what he is not too good at, ie. programming.

There are still unknown collaborations on the new album, but Per told Hallandsposten he and Mats MP Persson wrote some songs together now for the first time since long and they might turn up on the new album. Mr. G says he would never be able to write “Fading Like A Flower” today, simply because he has moved on as a songwriter.

Regarding the changes in music consumption Per says nowadays it’s less important to people who wrote the songs or who plays the drums. Today’s pop music reflects the society today, so most of it is made on laptops where everything can be fixed in the end.

This time he says again that social media is a unique way to get close to the fans.

Jan-Owe Wikström asked Per what is left to do after that he has done almost everything with Roxette, Gyllene Tider, his solo projects and soundtrack. Maybe a musical? Per can imagine that there could be a musical built on Roxette’s, Gyllene Tider’s hits or his solo songs just like ABBA’s “Mamma Mia” and the Queen musical, but only if the right way is found. Something new. Maybe with Jonas Åkerlund as a director.

From the Hallandsposten interview it turns out that Per is still writing his diaries after each show, so it’s not only the Facebook posts he writes about them. And they film a lot. Probably, a lot more than what we get to see after each gig on Facebook.

Roxette plays in Poland once more in 2015!

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The concert is going to be a company event though. The 25th anniversary of Inter Cars will be celebrated with a huge party in the National Stadium in Warsaw on 19th September. Besides other Polish artists, Roxette will also perform at the event! Probably, 2-3 songs only (or maybe 5-6?), because they are announced as “the icing on the cake”. Approximately 60,000 people fit in the stadium so it’s quite huge. Gala starts at 20:00, gates open at 18:30. According to the info on the website where the event is announced, concert tickets are free, but will be distributed by affiliates among their clients.

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Thanx to Basia Konarzewska for the info!

Roxette XXX Tour – Warsaw, Poland (Torwar) – June 22 – #40

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Have you ever had a “deja vu” feeling? That you see something you have experienced and enjoyed already in the past? And you really loved it back then? Well, I belive we are all in this deja vu phase once again. Roxette played Warsaw for the first time almost exactly 4 years ago and back then it was the 40th gig on then-growing Neverending Tour Part 1. Now they were back to my town with yet another – surprise, surprise – 40th concert in the 2014-2015 tour edition, at the very same venue, with a little more mature crowd and the band that got some new glossy shirts, but kept the same unforgettable smiles on their faces and rocking attitude few could only imagine.

Torwar takes up to around 6,000-7,000 people and it was surely more packed yesterday than 4 years ago, even considering a little or no-marketing campaign from Live Nation side. I guess it just means good products sell themselves 😉 Queuing started very early in the morning, with people arriving shortly after 6am, but in the end no one took a proper control of numbering system and we chose chaos instead – we like it like that here. In front of the venue both old, young, ladies with kids, disabled, hipsters with beards (me included!), death-metal fans were waiting nicely in the line, dressed in the old Roxette t-shirts or the one produced by Arek Rykaczewski for 60+ hardcore fans from Polish Roxette forum. Some of them were really eager to see Roxette so security needed to drag them out from the line. Shit happens. Gosia Puterman who stood behind “Polish hearts for Roxette” initiative was cutting out white and red hearts, informing people outside with use of a megaphone what they should do during the concert. We also wanted to help somehow that’s why we were handing out simple instructions when the flash mob should start. Impressive number of 2,000 hearts were cut with fans doing this days and nights. Amazing Roxette movement! Where will it lead next?

Roxette and the crew spent Midsommar in Sweden and they were supposed to fly to Warsaw on Sunday. But as there was a hacker attack on the Polish airline’s system Marie and few staff members were forced to change the flight to Monday. Per came to Warsaw at 5pm just few hours before the concert and headed straight to the arena. It was one of the earliest Roxette gigs starting just 20 minutes after 8pm. Just before Magnus Börjeson picked 14 bootleg DVDs done by bunch of dedicated Poles – Slawek Sztul, Blanka Pentela, Ela Krysinska with a little help from my side. Each band member got two boxes with video recordings of Warsaw 2011 and Gdansk 2012 concerts. It turned out Polish fans were going to surprise the band few more times during the evening…

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In Roxette world dictionary I would call myself a midcore-fan as it was only my 8th Roxette concert ever. The last time I saw Roxette was Kaunas, Lithuania in November last year and hey, what a bloody change it was. For better. Marie secured in her chair in a top-top-top shape, enjoying every minute, clapping her hands. Per was jumping, sweating and speaking per-fect Polish “dzieki” (thanks). You could easily see if they could, they would probably jump off the stage to the crowd to feel the energy hidden there. You could read it off Marie’s eyes that night – stage is the place she wants to be, no matter what the haters say, no matter what you think or press writes. Skitsamma as Swedes say. She wants to be there and she wants to deliver the best she can – and with hand on my heart – she did all there was to put a spell on the crowd, to do the hocus-pocus even without “Almost unreal” in the setlist. One of my magical moments was the whole arena (or at least it felt like so) singing “Paint” part in Watercolours in the rain – such vulnerable voice mixed with a 6,000 fans’ singing is one of that precious moments everyone will remember.

But obviously it wouldn’t be a proper Polish concert, if there was no flash mob. U2, Depeche Mode, Madonna or Robbie Williams – they all had it and Roxette couldn’t have worse fans. Gosia Puterman came up with the idea to create a heart-shaped Polish flag – red in the standing pit, white on the tribunes. It was truely magical to see heart sea during “The Heart Shaped Sea” and “Listen to your heart” – as if Per Gessle’s lyrics came to life that evening. Warsaw harvest was truely successful and fruitful!

Hearts in Warsaw

A lot of things landed on the stage that night – fluffy stuff including white stork, which is considered being Poland’s symbol and a sign of expecting a baby – we all know Roxette is working on a new album, don’t we? Hope it won’t be another 9 months till we hear it. Arek’s white-and-red paper-flower chains were picked up by Magnus and Clarence who tried to wear them for a moment just to bring a little Warsaw-Hawaii feel to the stage. Polish flag was traditionally thrown on the stage and Per took it in his handyman hand for a short blessing moment. A lot of patriotical moments if you ask me, but we actually like our national colours! But as it was dangerous for the band, everyting was taken off the stage. On the top of that Chris played “Pszczolka Maja” known so good from Czech original and some local versions in all former communist countries in the central Europe. Cool addition that made the crowd gone wild! “Dziekujemy” screams from the audience  (thank you) at the end must have come up as a suprise to the band, but I belive they understood what we meant. Anyway we were and still are really thankful, trust us.

Am I happy with the concert? Hell I am! Would I change something? Obviously – more songs, but the setlist is a crowd-winner anyway with all big hits performed, sing-a-longs and overwhelming energy. Will there be more Roxette in the future? Yes, there is a bright future, world needs real entertainers who know their job, do this with heart against all odds. Fuck cancer, fuck hurting leg, fuck bad days, we are here for emotions and true beauty and that’s what Roxette easily deliver. I heard people saying that was the last Roxette concert in Poland. I did hear this back in 2011, also in 2012… That they cannot continue that forever and ever etc. Please, stop. Don’t try to convince yourself that’s the end – we have seen so maaaaany endings and even more beginnings. After all what we learned from Roxette is that all begins where it ends.

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Per after the show:

WARSAW UPDATE: Speechless!!! What a crowd!!! Thanx for an everlasting memory, we had such a blast! Band in top model mood and Marie in terrific shape, who can ask for more? Love!!! /P.

Picture used in the article were taken by Przemek Starosta and Marcin Krzysztof.

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 /w Pszczolka Maja

Listen To Your Heart
The Look

Articles

Interia
Liveshot.com.pl
Michal Mlynarczyk
Nasze Miasto
Musicalert.pl
Szymon Starnawski Photography
Live Nation Poland

Videos

Pszczolka Maja/Joyride https://youtu.be/vzoztvtAYI4
It Must Have Been Love https://youtu.be/LIBb0piGP9U
Listen To Your Heart (bis) https://youtu.be/XjXvG-NX3jM
Spending My Time https://youtu.be/BZFsrZfqomM
Fading Like A Flower https://youtu.be/fIXvZU_TChI
Dressed For Success/Dangerous https://youtu.be/RCfj1JqU5F0
Sleeping In My Car https://youtu.be/D0IkE2e75Hc
The Big L. https://youtu.be/2YB51l0J7JE
The Look (bis) https://youtu.be/Koo3Ke3bleY