HALMSTAD – Shortly after 9 Gyllene Tider entered the stage at “Marknadsplatsen” in Halmstad. Marknadsplatsen is not the best place to have concerts, but what do you do? The show started with an animated intro narrated by very-full-of-themselves-known-from-Swedish TV Fredrik & Filip. They are big Gyllene fans. I am not a F&F fan. Roughly 20,000 people saw the concert.

Gyllene opened with “Gå & fiska!” which was rather surprising, since they normally play that much later in the show. The band sounds very very tight, tighter than ever actually. Most of the songs we’ve heard before. New songs this tour were “På jakt efter liv,” “Vera,” “Det blir aldrig som man tänkt sej” and “Dags att tänka på refrängen.” It remains to be seen if this stays the same. In the middle of the show Micke Syd steps up and performs “Min tjej och jag” acoustically, and the band continues with “Cole Porter” and “Tuffa tider.” While the acoustic set is OK, it feels like it would fit maybe as the first extras instead of being a bit of a show-stopper. All the songs Gyllene played this evening were Anders’ favorite songs… “Demon Emptiness” was missed however. The boys felt relaxed and gave each other room to rock on the stage.

The stage itself looked very nice and, for Gyllene, hi-tech with backdrops and monitors with 3D-animations and other nifty backgrounds, like for instance Micke’s boy room back in Harplinge. They had a Farfisa-cam as well, showing DJ Fritzon doing his Farfisa-magic and it was used a lot (Check out the right Farfisa…). All in all a good opener for a tour that deserves to be seen. Per needs to work some on his banter though, and a problem that’s not Gyllene’s fault is the law prohibiting sound levels exceeding 100 db.

But oh how I wanted to hear “Flickan i en Cole Porter-sång” with its full arrangement…

Set list

1. Gå & fiska!
2. Det blir aldrig som man tänkt sej
3. Juni, juli, augusti
4. Det hjärta som brinner
5. På jakt efter liv
6. (Dansar inte lika bra som) Sjömän
7. Allt jag lärt mej om livet (har jag lärt mej av Vera)
8. En sten vid en sjö i en skog
9. Min tjej och jag
10. Flickan i en Cole Porter-sång
11. Tuffa tider (för en drömmare)
12. Kung av sand
13. Flickorna på TV2
14. (Hon vill ha) Puls
15. Ljudet av ett annat hjärta
16. Ska vi älska så ska vi älska till Buddy Holly
17. (Kom så ska vi) Leva livet
18. Tylö Sun

19. Det är över nu
20. Billy
21. När vi två blir en

22. Sommartider
23. Dags att tänka på refrängen
24. När alla vännerna gått hem