Piteå-Tidningen 130725
By: Anders Sandlund
Piteå. 4,000 visitors filled the Norrstrand lawns and some people stood in queue for hours to get a seat as close to the stage as possible. Piteå-Tidningen’s Anders Sandlund is maybe not lyrical, but noticeably thrilled when he here below reviews the performance at Norrstrand on Wednesday night.
Concert: Benny Andersson Band
Location: Norrstrand, Piteå
Length: Slightly over four hours, including a short break. More than 50(!) songs.
Audience: Approximately 4,000 people. High average age. Cozy atmosphere.
With the right band, program, weather and audience in symbiosis is this an evening out of the ordinary. I note that Benny Andersson Band gives me one of the most beautiful job evenings I’ve ever experienced.
[…] On the whole it’s a generous, powerful and pleasurable experience.
There is a large collection of high caliber musicians who take care of us and they sound just as good as one can expect.
Benny nearly never looks as satisfied as he does when he wears his accordion. Somewhere, he’s probably still the same person that his grandfather once inspired, and many successes later he still feels so authentic and unspoiled in his relationship to the notes, rhythms and harmonies.
BAO frames the bandleader’s musical achievement in a nice way and move freely among lush umpa umpa pace and old-fashioned pop with a jazzy New Orleans touch, between frisky hambo and pop with dizzying international success on its conscience. It is as if someone has mixed the programs* “Nygammalt” and “Da Capo” and poured a few scoops of Abba in the brew.
(*two Swedish radio programs playing songs that once were hits)
The Abba songs are chosen with style. Not the biggest, most played songs. No, here we get a nice lumbering “Why did it have to be me,” an organic “Kisses of fire”, an “Hasta manana” with extra luster and a really powerful “One man, one woman” in a duet with Sjöholm and Körberg.
It’s mosquito-free and virtually no wind. The large lamp warms and the sky is blue. In short, you’ll have to look at a painting of Zorn to find a more enchanting high summer evening. The atmosphere is really cozy. The lavatory queue seems to be of the humane kind throughout the evening and people talk to each other in normal conversation voices during the break. I think that the lack of beer pumps is the reason, in a good way.
On the dance floor the colored lanterns are swaying in schottis pace. There’s a pretty high pressure on the dance floor – which does have the best “seats” – except for when the band plays Bach. When Helen Sjöholm gives us “Vår sista dans” it of course gets crowded.
She is just right for this. The power, presence and articulation fit perfectly in most everything she gets to handle. “Bortom sol och måne” (Beyond sun and moon) and “Svarta siluetter” (Black silhouettes), both with lyrics by Kristina Lugn, are a couple of newer song jewels.
Tommy Körberg leads the singing in “Gamle Svarten” and he even plays drums in a sequence, but above all it’s fun that he still has so much voice in him. It´s obvious in several heavier numbers.
Sweden’s own Kalle Moraeus makes a subtle “Beatrice” and a humorous and powerful “O sole mio” and when it’s time for “En dag i sänder” he offers a dazzling guitar solo.
The last hour is magnificent entertainment. The band tunes “Cadillac” and drives out in the moonlight with captain Körberg at the wheel. We get “Fait accompli”, we get an extra nimble “Du är min man” and a medley including “Vårat gäng” (Our gang) and “Bättre och bättre dag för dag” (Better and better day by day). Gosh, I’m just waiting for “Schottis på Valhall”.
The party closes dignified with “O Klang och jubeltid” and I’m still content as I write this. I can only say wow – sorry, BAO – what a night!