STOCKHOLM – After the last few weeks of good reviews of Roxette here at TDR there’s nothing much to add really. Roxette played the Ericsson Globe Arena in Stockholm Thursday night, with Vikunja as the opening act. This reporter was stuck backstage taking pictures of happy meet & greet winners during Vikunja so sadly he cannot review their performance.

Roxette, however, I saw the full show. It was the same show as usual, but I hadn’t seen the new stage, or heard the 1.5 new songs. The verdict? Roxette scores 1-0 over Sweden. Like we’ve stated before, the new stage and lights are a huge improvement over the “summer tour.” The band is tighter (if that’s even possible at this stage) and Roxette sounds good, plain and simple. Marie was a bit shaky, it’s always nervous to be on home turf, but she did splendidly as well. The now famous “international fans” fill in the blanks in the lyrics and Marie shines with happiness as they do.

I talked to many people that can’t be described as Roxette fans and they were overwhelmed. One guy said “I never realized how good they are live!” and his sentiment was shared by several. The Globe admitted circa 9,600 people on the Friday.

The concert was visited by the Swedish Minister of Foreign Affairs, Carl Bildt who also attended the meet and greet before the concert.

To almost quote The Daily Roxette reporter Kai-Uwe Heinze: Get tickets to this tour or be left out!