Reminiscing with Roxette

A few days ago I got a chance to meet Roxette by winning an FB quiz. I've been listening to Roxette Since I was a toddler. Not particularly listening actually, but my mom kept playing it since I was raised in Australia. On March 3, I went to the concert with Mahdesi, Echie, and met some of her friends there. When we got there, we were queuing to get into MEIS (Mata Elang International Stadium) hall. Roxette was the first performer who held concert there. There were no dressed up teenagers like teenage concerts usually be held. Those who came were young mothers and the husbands who reminisced when Roxette succeeded in their era.

The concert began at 8.30 pm. Marie Fredriksson and Per Gessle came up with Dressed For Success. I found Marie wasn't able to reach high tones. But she was still great with such voice like that, knowing that she just recovered from suffering cancer. They brought hits such as Wish I Could Fly, It Must Have Been Love, Crash Boom Bang, How Do You Do, Dangerous, and Joyride. Marie let us sing together in most of the time. They came up with 2 times encore. At first they gave us Spending My Time and The Look. I could feel the 80s atmosphere there. After they said goodbye, the audience just couldn't be satisfied with the show. A couple mins later Per showed up and said "I think I can't leave without giving you this one". And then Roxette ended up their second encore with Listen To Your Heart. 

They played really well until the electricity of the outcome sound speaker was off. That was such an anticlimax concert after all. Regarding Big Daddy's explanation, Roxette's sound console from sound engineer was not working properly. But apparently the concert ran well since they could bring us the 80s and 90s goosebumps that lost lately this decade. But I actually wonder why Vulnerable wasn't played that night. I rate this concert 7 out 10 :).

The Greatest Hits Tour (a1 FTW)

 











When I was a teenager, i lived in the boy band era (unlike the boy band era of these recent years, though). There have been so many qualified boy bands spreading such as Boyzone, BSB, NKOTB, NSYNC, Westlife, Blue, A1, 98°, etc. Nevertheless, 90's era had the best qualified music of all time (at least for me :p), not to mention the boy bands.

my sister and I

So i heard that Blue, A1, and Jeff Timmons of 98° will be going on tour in Indonesia this February 26. It's call The Greatest Hits Tour. I was like, OMG i need to see them! A1 was my fave boy band when i was teenager, and still is! And so i bought the ticket with Buy 1 get 1 promo. I planned to watch the concert with my sister, Azka. She loves these boy bands as well since i contaminated her music taste from the very beginning of our childhood :p. Actually our both most fave boy bands are A1 and Blue, since we have all their cassettes ha ha!

Jeff Timmons was so close

It was rainy day when we arrived at JIExpo, Kemayoran that February 26. We spent like 15 mins in parking lot and then with forced, decided to go inside the main hall. The gate was opened at 7.30 pm. Actually i was at Festival 2 class, where the audience were separated by fences. Based on my experience, when the front class isn't full enough, other class is moved to the front class so the artist or performer won't be disappointed heheh. So it was true, the festival 2 class audience were allowed to move to the festival 1 class. Then my sister and I got in to the very front row :p. The first performer was Jeff Timmons. He brought several 98° songs such as Because of You, The Hardest Thing, I Do (Cherish You), Una Noche, Invisible Man, and some of his solo singles. He took some girls to the stage and made the crowd screamed. 

A1 rocked the night

Mark Read with his keyboard

It took a couple mins to see A1. At first there was a big screen with A1 singing with seriosa style and they came suddenly to the stage with Same Old Brand New You. Aaaaa that was my fave song on The A List album. I just couldn't stop screaming and yelling! I was standing right in front of Chris. They also brought Be The First to Believe, Summertime of Our lives, Everytime, One More Try, Living The Dream, and my fave from Here We Come album, Ready or Not. I couldn't even easily breathe seeing them in front of me. They had surprise for us. They covered Poker Face and I gotta Feeling really well. Waiting For Daylight and In Love And I Hate It were their new songs from their latest album that they brought that night. And last, they smashed up with Like A Rose, No More, Caught in The Middle and Take on Me. It's too bad they didn't put Make It Good to their setlist :(. I was really entertained and fully satisfied with A1's performance. At first glance, A1 may seem no different than the rest of the late 90s onslaught of boy bands, but these guys differ in that they write their own songs and play their own instruments.They also produce their own songs, and each member of them had become producer/songwriter of many great musicians such as Jarvis Cocker, Charlotte Church, Ronan Keating etc.

Guitargenic Chris

Nerdy Blue

And then like 20 mins later Blue showed up. I was right in front of Duncan James. Their first song that night was Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word. We all began reminiscing when they brought U Make Me Wanna, If You Come Back, All Rise, Too Close, and Fly By. They changed their clothes once, from nerdy to bad boy style. For the last songs they gave us Breathe Easy and One Love. I thought Blue, as the last and closing performer, would give us the best performance of all. But seriously, A1 made it! Full band, qualified equipment, and not a single minus one was given that day. If i have to rate each performance of theirs, i'll give 6.5 to Jeff, 8.5 to A1, and 7 for Blue out of 10.

Bad boy Blue

One Love