So, last night was the latest event in the schlager fest that has been the Love Stockholm festival. We went along to Kungsträdgården to see Timoteij, Magnus Carlsson, and Charlotte Perrelli do their schlager thing, and got a stellar 90 minutes of entertainment!
Timoteij were first up, and did a 45 minute set of songs from their (brilliant) debut album ‘Längtan’. They were due to start at 8, but at 2 minutes past 8, they were still soundchecking onstage, in front of a full crowd!?!?! When that was finished, they left the stage for a couple of minutes, were introduced by the hosts, and then came back on stage all smiles and waves as though nothing had happened! Anyway, they launched into a fabulous gig, so any technical hitches were soon forgotten. They were their normal, delightful, adorable selves. All smiles during each song, and charming banter with the audience in between. Just before ‘Kom’, they started reminiscing about that night in February when they were in Melodifestivalen/were waiting in the green room for the results/heard that the heat winner was about to be announced/couldn’t believe it when they heard ‘’melodi nummer sex, Kom’’ etc etc, and then they thanked everyone for their support and votes. They also performed new single ‘Högt Över Ängarna’, which is released in 2 weeks in Sweden. If you haven’t heard it yet, here’s the audio played over that performance of ‘Kom’ which never gets old!
Next up was Magnus Carlsson, who’s looking great these days, he’s kept the weight off. He strode onto stage in a gorgeous fitted suit, beaming with confidence, with winty banter that seemed to amuse most of the audience (we couldn’t understand half of it obviously, since we’re in the early stages of learning Swedish). Plus, he gave us our highlight of the evening, when he performed a stunning piano ballad version of ‘Live Forever’. So beautiful, and so well sung too. He’s still got great vocals on him. He also performed his old hit with Barbados (and our favourite song of theirs), ‘Kom Hem’, which actually got the best audience reaction out of all his songs. He started his set off though, with his more recent single ‘A Little Respect’, and then his brand new track ‘Feel You’, which we love.
’Feel You’ is the best thing Magnus has put his name to since ‘Walking In My Shoes’ back in late 2008. It continues the disco vibe that he’s been cultivating for himself over the last few years, but brings the style of disco right up to the dancefloors of today. It’s disco music that sounds like dance music. Not only that, but it borrows from one of our favourite niches of dance music from the last couple of years – that Star Pilots/Sunblock/Velvet style of big eighties synths, massive drums, and bucketloads of drama! And as with his previous single, ‘A Little Respect’, it was produced by the perennially amazing Pitchline, who of course were also responsible for the aforementioned output of the aforementioned Velvet. You can see Magnus performing ‘Feel You’ on Swedish television, in the clip below;
Magnus’ performances were interspersed with Charlotte Perrelli’s songs. So he would do two, then she would do two, then he would do one, then she would do one, etc etc. She looked amazing as always, and sounded great too. She performed the English language version of ‘Take Me To Your Heaven’, surprisingly, plus ‘Hero’ (and both songs came with her doing the same dance steps, and hair flicking movements that their Eurovision performances had!). She also performed a Swedish language version of one of her favourite songs of all time, ‘Little Green Apples’ – Monica Zetterlund’s ‘Små Gröna Äpplen’. And she did a random cover of ‘I Will Survive’, with some audience participation.
The Magnus and Charlotte show culminated in a duet from the two of them, which is also a single that they’ve released together this month. The song ‘Mitt Livs Gemål’ has been composed especially for the royal wedding which takes place this weekend, and is a pretty little ballad sung gorgeously by the both of them. Don’t they sound great together?!
The TV4 website has been sporadically uploading select sets from the fortnight’s entertainment. Latest to go up are the sets from Magnus Carlsson and Charlotte Perrelli, Erik Grönwall, and Nanne Grönvall. We’re especially happy about the last two, because they’re the only two we’ve missed so far! Erik, because we were watching Alcazar and Elin Lanto elsewhere, and Nanne, because we were busy. So here’s all three if you fancy a gander;
Tonight, we’re going along again, to see Ola, Salem Al Fakir, Star Pilots, and Gravitonas! We’re particularly excited about Gravitonas, as it’s their first ever live performance, so that should be a bit of a historical moment. Plus, Alexander Bard has told us that they’ll be performing 2 songs, so we’re looking forward to hearing what the second song is going to sound like. We’re also looking forward to Star Pilots, to see what they look like live without Johan Becker. And to see if they’ll do any new material. We will of course be reporting back here if so!
