MILAN – Roxette visited Italy for the first time in 26 years, and gave a very solid performance in an intimate setting before 2800 people in a Milan theater.

The Milan concert on May 10, 2015 was Roxette’s first visit to the land of pasta and Pecorino since the Look Sharp! Tour in 1989. It also marked the re-ignition of their XXX Tour since the short break after the AUS-NZ leg.

Roxette performed at Teatro degli Arcimboldi, a concert hall inaugurated in 2002 with the capacity of 2,375 people. The theater acted as a substitute while Milan’s famous opera house La Scala was under major renovation.

The concert was completely sold out and the organizers had even set up a small number of extra seats in the front where the orchestra pit usually is. This area was also where the photographers were able to shoot during the second and third song (“The Big L” and “Stars”, respectively).

Before the concert I had a short chat with Tumppi Haaranen who worked as the assistant tour manager during the Charm School Tour in 2011-2012 but has since moved to work with Live Nation in Asia region. He’s now back with Roxette until the Zurich concert on July 11. He’s been in the music business since 1970 and after seeing everything there is to see in his native Finland and in Europe, he sounded more than happy for the chance to work in Asia. He also had only good things to say about the Roxette fans who, to quote him, treat even the crew like stars and want to take photos and chat. Tip: Tumppi always has his pockets full of guitar picks for the fans!

The band started a few minutes late without an opening act. They kicked off with “Sleeping In My Car” and got the audience jamming immediately. From there on they continued with the same set list as on their previous leg. The list has been shortened a bit and for example “7Twenty7” and “Real Sugar” have been dropped out. Also, the arrangements have been significantly shortened with much less Christoffer-Per-Magnus trio blasting off with their instruments at the end of every uptempo song. For me, this was a very welcome change.

Roxette performed in front of huge Venetian blinds that were sometimes opened, and during a few songs they were closed and used as an animated backdrop, showing lyrics on “How Do You Do!” and a moving ferris wheel on “Joyride”. They also had retro style amplifiers on stage. The band was wearing their usual outfit, although Marie had switched from a rock band T-shirt to a white ruffle blouse.

Marie was clearly enjoying the reaction she got from the audience. She didn’t sing many high notes except a short but chillingly well executed show-off in the end of “Listen To Your Heart”. Speaking of which, she was a bit unsure of the song’s lyrics at first and asked Dea to step closer and help her out. They sounded excellent together, so that wasn’t at all a bad move. Then, in the following “The Look”, Marie definitely didn’t need any help from anyone!

All in all, Roxette gave a very solid performance in an intimate setting. The audience wasn’t big, but it felt like everyone was singing along, and even though everyone had seats, when “The Look” was ending the 100-minute show, there weren’t many sitting anymore.

Oh, and by the way, you know those unmarked black containers Per has for his drinks on stage? You may see Chris or Magnus holding a bottle of beer, but not so with Per, his bottles always have just plain water. Now you know.

Photos and video © 2015 Visa Kopu/The Daily Roxette