Song and Dance

Courtesy of my ever sweet and thoughtful wife, we had a rare night out on the town last weekend. What with working, commuting, horse training and language classes, unallocated time doesn't come up very often. So this was a bit of a treat. Through various forms of skullduggery, we ended up with 2 tickets to see Carola. Those Swedes out there will need no explanation of Carola or her achievements in the music industry. But, for the less Swedish of you, Carola is a Swedish icon. A local one woman Abba, but without the same impressive gay community following. At least, I don't think that she does. The public highlight of Carola's career was winning the Eurovision song contest back in 1991. Which is also probably the last year that a winning song wasn't sung in English. But that's another story.

So, back to the concert, which was held at Luleå's beautiful Kulturens Hus. For anyone passing through the region, I recommend a stop off at this venue. The name literally translates to House of Culture, and that describes it well. It's the modern equivalent of the medieval town square, where people can gather to learn, discuss, or be entertained. I think it's a great idea. The public library portion of the building is light, roomy, and really encourages a person to sit for a while and, well, read I guess. The concert was held in one of the larger theatres in the building. On the same floor as a fully catered restaurant. I'm always a bit cautious about the seating in these places, as I'm a bit on the taller side. But I was pleasantly surprised that I could sit quite happily without having my ankles behind my ears.

So what of the concert itself. Well, for starters, she sung for a full 2 hours. No pesky warmup act introduced to make you forget that you're only going to see 5 minutes of some aging superstar you paid a couple of hundred bucks to watch lipsyncing. Nope this was the real deal. Swedes are a bit like that, it doesn't occur to them to be deceptive. Poor misguided fools. And she's got a great voice. No denying that. Not many people can pull off a sentimental croon whilst on roller skates. But somehow, with Carola, it worked.

As always, there's a down side. There are some things that people simply shouldn't do in life. Some things you know can only end in disaster or disappointment.There's a reason why the TV ads say, "Kids, don't try this at home". And here's another one to add to the list: No 5 foot 1 inch tall, 45 year old, brunette haired Swedish female singer, no matter how talented and well loved they are, should attempt to touch Elvis. When you're not Elvis, and you want to be taken seriously, you just don't do it. It would have been ok, if it hadn't turned into a singalong with several hundred middle aged Swedes trying with their best English from 30 years ago to sound like, well, I'm not really sure what the desired effect was. But it wasn't pleasant, that I can promise. I guess the main thing was that they enjoyed it, and they clearly thought that they sounded pretty good. Who am I to question that.

I thought that my live concert highlight would be seeing David Bowie in 1983 (I think) on his Serious Moonlight tour. Which, for anyone interested, was also the first time I ever saw dope. Next on the list was Cold Chisel (well known Aussie band) the following year. Followed by Boney M and Manfred Man, who played regularly before our local football games. When we scored free tickets to a Tony Christie concert a few years back from a guy we met on the street outside of the theatre, I thought my life was complete. Now I've seen Carola, I can probably say that I've collected the set.