Review: ROXETTE ON TOUR 2025 at Trädgårdsföreningen In Gothenburg

In fall 2024 the music from Roxette was transformed to the musical Joyride which opened in Malmö and been sold out. Joyride is transfering to Stockholm and opens in September. Once you thought that would be the last thing from Roxette, Per Gessle suprised us all and announced a world wide tour for Roxette which started in Cape Town, South Africa in December 2024. The summer leg of the tour has now reached Sweden so Roxette is back home again. The summer leg ends in Sweden with four concerts, two in Gothenburg and two in Per Gessles home town Halmstad and where Roxette was founded.

This warm summer evening provides the perfect conditions for a successful outdoor concert and the audience is on from the first notes when Norwegian Dagny takes the stage as the opening act in the Garden Association at 8:00 PM. The concert information did not mention any opening act, but Dagny was a positive surprise. Poppy, catchy music performed by a bundle of energy that charmed the audience immediately and she had no problem getting them to sing along and clap their hands in unison. After just over 30 minutes and a happily warmed-up audience, she and the band left the stage and made way for a change of direction.

At about 9:05 PM, the notes for Hyland's Corner began to play and then Per Gessle, Lena Philipsson and the band stepped up. The band where most of the musicians have been in Roxette from the start. The first song out is The Big L and then a string of 20 songs in total roll out, most of which are huge hits. The song Wish I could fly has been added to the playlist compared to the concert at Trädgårdsföreningen on Wednesday.

Lena Philipsson filled the shoes of Marie Fredriksson very well with both her energetic stage presence, twinkle in her eye and her powerful voice that highlighted her rock side as well as a vulnerability and fragility in the fine tribute to Marie in It must have been love, in the stripped-down acoustic version of Spending my time and also in Listen to your heart.

The ballads and the rockier uptempo songs are mixed well and the atmosphere is at its best right through the entire concert. The audience is not forced to sing along as Per initially encourages everyone to "Sing along with all the lyrics you can and if you can't sing the lyrics anyway - we will"

The audience loves having Roxette back on stage - a mixture of nostalgia trip and experiencing a bunch of immortal pop classics that are so well worth playing live again in this format. Per has sneaked in a few Roxette songs during his solo tours but now they get to fly again in their entirety. Per seems to enjoy every note on stage, as do all the musicians who give their all from the start. Full blast in songs like Dressed for Success, How do you do, Dangerous, Joyride and The Look.

The new-old lineup of Roxette has landed safely back home in Sweden after a little over six months of touring around the world. As I said, this concert was longer than the first on Swedish soil and it is conceivable that Per will let the Halmstad audience get even more. Away is good but home is best.

After the outdoor tour, a number of concerts await at larger indoor arenas and I can only recommend that you get tickets for them. The almost 10,000 in the audience tonight were very satisfied.

The final part of the Roxette Tour starts the 6th of November in Prague and ends in Trondheim, Norway the 13th of December. But prior to that, the musical Joyride opens at China Theater in Stockhom the 11th of September. 

Ticket to the concert tour is on sale at Ticketmaster: https://www.ticketmaster.se/artist/roxette-biljetter/2141

Tickets to Joyride-The musical is on sale at: https://www.chinateatern.se/

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