Carola's Det bästa av mig tour landed helsinki's Kulttuuritalo last night. The venue was sold out and when I looked aroud the crowd before the concert I thought this is going to be one dull evening - mostly middle aged couples. Mostly Finnish speaking. A very few Eurovision fans (those that you see everywhere) and even fewer young people. But how wrong I was! Carola entered the stage with the Orup version of Främling before moving on to Tell me this night is over and by third song, Gatorna tillhör oss she had the audience on their feet, eating from her hand and dancing around. I have never witnessed so many middle aged Finns letting their inner teenager out that way. When she continued with her hits from the early 1980's like Tommy tycker om mig and Mickey I noticed I wasn't the only one knowing stil all the lyrics by heart. Even she noticed that something special was going on and commented from stage "I see this is going to be a very interesting evening!"
She was in top form vocally and came across very funny when talking about her songs and her past. A long introduction and background talk was saved for När löver faller, her missed 2003 Melodifestivalen entry. Her late mother (and father as well) was remembered in Allt kommer bli bra mamma and Oh happy day. Runaway led us to an Eurovision double of Evighet and Fångad av en stormvind before an amazing medley of her early years (Gloria, Säg mig var vi står, Visa lite mänsklighet, Liv, Tokyo, Det regnar i Stockholm, På egna ben, Mitt i ett äventyr, Sanna vänner, Genom allt) and people were already out of their seats and packed in front of the stage. Så länge jag lever and the original version of Främling ended the night as encore. But people were still wanting more but unfortunately it was lights on and show over. From the original set list only All the reasons to live was missing or skipped for all the reasons only she knows.
I went there expecting nothing much but left thinking this was one of the best concert experiences ever! For once a best of tour is exactly that, all the best songs one after another and no last album filer tracks here and there. It was very refreshing to actually know all the songs and remember the lyrics by heart to most of them, even if they were 25-32 years old! I saw her first tour in summer 1983 in Sweden, now I saw her latest one in Finland. It was great to hear so many of those songs again :-)
I went there expecting nothing much but left thinking this was one of the best concert experiences ever! For once a best of tour is exactly that, all the best songs one after another and no last album filer tracks here and there. It was very refreshing to actually know all the songs and remember the lyrics by heart to most of them, even if they were 25-32 years old! I saw her first tour in summer 1983 in Sweden, now I saw her latest one in Finland. It was great to hear so many of those songs again :-)
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