We’ve just got back from FIVE hours of standing around in central Stockholm, gawping at scandipopstars sing their hearts out at the Love Stockholm festival. And we loved every minute of it!
If the weekend’s line up was of schlager stars, then this evening was the pop night. And the line up was packed full of names; Alice Svensson, REbound, Elin Lanto, Alcazar, Erik Grönwall, and Darin.
Alice Svensson was first on, and performed her two hits, ‘Lady Luck’ and ‘I Wanna Live’, plus covers of David Guetta’s ‘When Love Takes Over’ (which she sounded amazing on), Natasha Bedingfield’s ‘These Words’, and also the Idol winner’s song that was released the year that she came second (to the song’s singer, Kevin Borg) ‘With Every Bit Of Me’.
REbound were up next with a total hot mess of a performance! As well as doing their hit ‘Hurricane’, and next single ‘Not Helpless’, they sang EIGHT mash ups. These ranged from Ke$ha’s ‘Tik Tok’ over Edward Maya’s ‘Stereo Love’, and Timbaland’s ‘Apologize’ over Taio Cruz’s ‘Break Your Heart’, to Black Eyed Peas ‘I Gotta Feeling’ over Darude’s ‘Sandstorm’. All were actually really enjoyable, although there were forgotten lyrics and dropped microphones all over the place!
Elin Lanto and Alcazar were performing at a different stage, both backed by a 25 piece orchestra – yes, really! So we got to hear fabulous new arrangements of Alcazar’s ‘Stay The Night’, and Elin Lanto’s ‘Tickles’ and ‘Love Made Me Stupid’. Plus Elin did a cover of the Eurythmics ‘Sweet Dreams’. Both might have done a few more songs, but we had to go back to the other stage to catch Darin, whom we’d never seen live before (besides in the audience at Melodifestivalen). We don’t think they did anymore tracks though, but if we find out that Elin did her next single ‘Funeral’, we’ll be gutted! Here’s Elin backstage before the show tonight;
Because we wanted to see Elin and Alcazar, it meant that we missed Erik Grönwall. However, we met up with Johan Becker afterwards who told us that he did a 45 minute set. Johan also joined Erik on stage to sing the song that Johan composed for Erik’s new album (‘Walls Are Coming Down’).
And lastly there was Darin! He also did a 45 minute set, complete with costume change! He sang a medley of his older hits, and some new songs from his new album out in August. Plus ‘Viva La Vida’, ‘You’re Out Of My Life’, ‘Step Up’ (which got the biggest reaction of the night), and a Michael Jackson medley (which we were pleased to hear included ‘They Don’t Care About Us’ – you don’t usually hear that included in Michael Jackson medleys, do you?!). He also performed his next single, ‘Love Killer’. But to be honest, we were really disappointed with it. Hopefully it’ll sound better in studio version form, but as we heard it tonight, it was quite underwhelming. Nothing catchy about it at all. It was great to see Darin live though. He’s a wonderful performer, and he’s got an incredible voice.
Phew! Bedtime now. And tomorrow evening it’s the nana of them all – Nanne!
