Photo & © Nicklas Thegerström
Dagens Nyheter 190725
By: MOHAMED YUSSUF
After three years of absence, Benny Andersson’s Orchestra is back, ready to meet dance enthusiasts around the country. DN visited the ensemble during the rehearsals for this year’s upcoming summer tour.
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Behind his grand piano bandmaster Benny Andersson sits. He bursts out:
– Do we really need to rehearse?
The question is remarkable, given that the ensemble has only three rehearsals booked for this year’s premiere concert, today Thursday, July 25, at the Garden Association in Gothenburg. In addition, each gig usually lasts for up to four hours, during which the orchestra plays about 60 songs.
– Right now, it´s actually the logistics on stage that is our biggest problem. Calle plays on different tubas and must be able to move between his positions without having to run too much. This also applies to Kalle Moraeus and his seventeen different guitars, mandolin and bouzoukis, Benny Andersson says with a laugh and adds:
– But when it comes to the songs themselves, it feels like we have just been out playing them, even though the last tour was 2016. We could probably go without rehearsing at all but then we might have become a little bit too uncertain.
According to Benny Andersson, the relaxed approach to preparation depends on the security and trust the group has built up for each other over the years. The orchestra was formed as early as 2001 and the upcoming summer tour will be their eighth. Ever since its inception, a prerequisite for the project has been that the audience dances.
– We always have a dance-floor ready and to see the audience inviting and dancing with each other gives us such incredible energy. It would not be as fun to play for almost four hours in a concert hall where the audience is just watching.
In terms of genre, the ensemble’s music balances on several legs.
– When I started this, I was inspired by the orchestras Thore Ehrling and Evert Taube had in the 40s and 50s, with piano, accordion and violins. But we don´t just play folk music but also pop and a little classical: Shostakovich and Bach, just to prove that we can, he says jokingly.
Concert visitors will recognize the concept, although this year’s repertoire contains a couple of news.
– I´ve written two new songs that we will perform for the first time. We will also play some songs that we have not played in 10-12 years, songs that have fallen away but which we picked up again. It will certainly be a bit from Abba but no known songs, just the obscure ones.
Which these obscure songs might be, Benny Andersson doesn´t want to reveal. However, he says that the orchestra usually prepares a song list, which is not carved in stone.
– The songs are in a certain order but then maybe we feel that the next song has a different mood than the one we want, and then maybe we skip it. We are organized but at the same time flexible. Everything is about interaction with the audience.
Tommy Körberg is of the same opinion. During the early years of the orchestra, the singer acted as a secret guest artist. Soon he became part of the permanent ensemble.
– Performing in front of an audience that both listens and dances, it gives so much back to us on stage. People dance twist and scottish, and I can stand there counting their footsteps: “One-two-three, just god what they can.” It’s impressive and very rewarding to be a part of.
He himself doesn´t deal with “organized movement”, although he talks about the dance program Let’s dance with a certain delight in his voice.
– They call every year, but it’s totally banned. My wife says, “Absolutely not.”
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The fact that the orchestra returns on the roads at regular intervals, even though they are all busy in their own quarters, has its explanation in the musical joy the tours elicit.
– Although it´s fairly simple songs, the whole context is so joyful. It also says something about Benny’s music, it simply becomes so damned extensive with him, Tommy Körberg says.
Helen Sjöholm gets into the room, after getting stuck in traffic at the Southbound tunnel. She also emphasizes the collaboration with Benny Andersson as one of the most exciting parts of the project.
– Benny has something specific that makes it so exciting to sing to his music. During rehearsals he can improvise, for example, a transition as quickly as possible. And the band adjusts just as quickly. It’s cool to see them create in real time.
She looks forward to singing at today’s premiere, and once again getting to experience how it “burns in the eyes” of the orchestra colleagues. You Are My Man, one of the orchestra’s early hits from 2004, is one of the songs she associates most with summer touring.
– I almost never sing it otherwise, because it´s difficult to do justice only with a piano. It works best with this sound, a large orchestra with full brass, she says, adding:
– I’ve never really understood that the audience loves that particular song. I don’t relate to it as much as they do. It´s very straightforward and takes no poetic detours at all. But it´s about unconditional love and it´s always beautiful. In addition, it is a dancer. I get a thousand wishes to play it on birthday parties, but I don’t. I don’t even sing it for my own man, she says with a laugh.
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(Due to copyright reasons the entire review cannot be reproduced)