Roxette – Vector Arena (Concert Review) 7 February 2015

Yes, they’ve still got the look, but do they have the sound? Swedish popsters Roxette blew into town last night giving audience members reason to wallow in a bit of nostalgia. As it turned out, it didn’t matter how they sounded as the fans did a fair share of the singing.

With most of their hitmaking years lodged in the late 80s and early 90s, this was always going to be a night for looking back. Adding a bit of extra poignancy is the fact that vocalist Marie Fredriksson suffered from a brain tumour and cancer several years ago that stole her sight in one eye and took the band off the road and out of the studio for eight years.

Marie had to be led to and from her place at the microphone and assisted when she sat down to sing during the middle of the set, but she can still sing.

Unfortunately her voice was difficult to hear at the beginning of the show as songs like Sleeping In My Car and The Big L suffered from a muddy sound mix that left many fans struggling to hear the vocals.

The fact that there were no video monitors to project the band to the back of the Vector didn’t help.

Eventually, the sound man got his act together…don’t they have sound checks just for that purpose?…and we could finally hear what was going on.

In addition to Fredriksson, who remained standing rather stiffly at her mic most of the night, Roxette consists of guitarist and vocalist Per Gessle who seemed to try to make up for Marie’s lack of animation by running and jumping around with his guitar and providing most of the between-song patter.

The band also consisted of another guitarist, bass, drums, keyboards and a female backing vocalist.

“Good to be here, finally,” announced Per, after their 1999 single, Stars. “If you know the lyrics, please sing along, because we don’t”, he joked with the crowd.

The audience was more than happy to oblige, singing along to the acoustic-driven Spending My Time from 1991.

New-ish single She’s Got Nothing On (But The Radio) from their 2011 album, Tourism went over well with the audience, with the sound finally at full throttle.

But when Marie sat down to sing the quiet Heart Shaped Sea, the audience quickly became restless, checking their Facebook updates and chattering among themselves. A shame, really, because the mandolin and pedal steel used on the following song, Perfect Day, sounded pretty good along with Marie’s fragile vocal.

But this was a crowd waiting for the hits, and they finally arrived in a flurry…It Must Have Been Love, Dressed For Success, Dangerous and Joyride came in quick succession and gave the fans what they wanted…something to sing along to.

Just before set closer Joyride, Per introduced the band and when he got to the guitarist, he ran across the stage, playing a few bars of 10 Guitars…nice touch!

For the encore, Marie returned to sing alone, accompanied by just a keyboard. The song was Watercolours In The Rain, and this time she held the audience’s attention before the band returned to bang out Listen To Your Heart and The Look.

There was time for one more ballad, Queen Of Rain and then it was time to go.

It was a somewhat uneven performance…a few shaky notes, some muddy sound and audience indifference, but in the end it all came together when the hits finally came out.

Marty Duda

Click here to view a gallery of concert photos by Michael Jeong:

Roxette set list:

1. Sleeping In My Car
2. The Big L
3. Stars
4. Spending My Time
5. Crash! Boom! Bang!
6. Crush On You
7. She’s Got Nothing On (But The Radio)
8. The Heart Shaped Sea
9. Perfect Day
10. Almost Unreal
11. How Do You Do
12. 7Twenty7
13. It Must Have Been Love
14. Dressed For Success
15. Dangerous
16. Joyride
17. Watercolours In The Rain
18. Listen To Your Heart
19. The Look
20. Queen Of Rain