Midnight Concert in Örebro

The Ritz club opened at 10 p.m. with a line at the door. The locals at the club were surprised to find out they had to wait at the door. The club opened on time, although the dance floor went unused for a good thirty minutes. People started streaming in around 11 pm and the floor was packed thirty minutes later.

Advertisement outside of the club.

Just inside the club as it opened the doors.

Someone walked up to me a little later and asked me in Swedish, "What's your name?" He introduced himself as Dimitri, a fan I've spoken with online but never met in reality. We talked about the concert, the club, and previous performances. Around Midnight, the dance floor was packed and about twenty minutes later, people started moving up to the front of the stage.

At 12:30 a.m., Jenny Berggren took the stage and proceeded through a 40 minute eleven song set. The set opened with a rendition of Happy Nation and proceeded through both Ace of Base songs and her own solo work.

A few clips from the show:

All That She Wants

Dying to Stay Alive

Lucky Love

Free Me

The full, better quality videos have been sent to jennyberggren.net

After the show, we spoke with the club manager to see if we could chat with Jenny's group before they left. However, he told us it would not be possible this time. We ended up at a pizza restaurant with a guy named Rickard who showed us around town and told us a few stories about Örebro until Dimitri had to leave for his bus to Stockholm.

Hello from Örebro!

The ice skating was great fun! It is much harder than it looks. We were able to skate on one of Sweden's biggest lakes, lake Vänern. It is frozen solid. Emma told me the ice is so thick, it could comfortably hold a car even though you could see large splits in the ice. In fact, people sometimes drive cars out onto the lake and lock up the wheels on purpose for an unforgettable ride. We also walked through the city park called Mariaberget, which includes many historical buildings, a petting zoo, and a kids playground. I enjoyed it tremendously.

Listen to the crunch. A path has been cut through the snow for skating.

Jonatan told me a little bit about his work with Melodifestivalen today as well. Photography is his hobby and he was able to step in and help this year when a fan website needed people to cover the event. He has been traveling around to all the qualifiers in Sweden and will be in Stockholm too. He said he took about 3,000 photos at yesterday's rehearsal and 8,000 in Malmö last week. Of those, he will get about 100 usable photos. I also thought my backpack was heavy. Seeing Jonatan's backpack helped me put things into perspective. He carries around a lot of equipment to get the job done. You can see some of his handiwork here at Poplight.se.

I said goodbye to my second set of CouchSurfing hosts a few hours back and have arrived in Örebro. I've also settled into my hostel for the evening. The Ritz Nightclub opens its doors at 10 p.m. and closes at 2 a.m, so the night has just started. The club plays a blend of 80's and 90's music with a touch of today's tracks. This evening, they have promised to play several Ace of Base songs as well. Bonus. There is no word yet on when Jenny Berggren will take the stage.

I've been getting my recording gear ready to use by emptying used memory and replacing batteries. I expect to run through a lot of both. For now, I will head out shortly in search of more of my favorite Swedish foods before the club opens up.

Swedish Adventures

Our CouchSurfing meeting last night included fifteen people from several different countries, including Spain, Germany, and Switzerland. We gathered at 7 pm and chatted for two hours. We continued on to a club later in the evening. It was about 2 am when we got home and we all went straight to bed. I'm not as young as I used to be, yet I still made it to the morning.

I'll be staying up late again today when I visit a nightclub in Örebro to see my favorite singer, Jenny Berggren from Ace of Base. Before that, Emma, Jonatan (a photographer for Melodifestivalen), and I will go skating. I haven't ice skated since I was fifteen. Emma has a helmet for me to use because I might need it!

I will be leaving Karlstad for Örebro a little later in the afternoon. First, I have to add a few songs to Emma and Christian's song list. They created a CouchSurfer playlist and their previous guests have added music to it. It's now my turn and I haven't yet decided what I want to add.

CouchSurfing - Round Two

Emma and Christian are my new CouchSurfing hosts. They are an energetic, fun loving, and happy couple who live just outside Karlstad. We met each other downtown this afternoon, chatted for about an hour, then went shopping for food. When we got back to their home, Emma and Christian made dinner. And I chopped the onions, since that's the full extent of my culinary skills. They did not hold my lack of skill against me. Our dinner consisted of tasty meat patties made with whiskey cheese, potatoes, mixed veggies, and a wonderful brown sauce. Emma made everything from scratch and it was one of the best home cooked meals I've had in a while.

We sat around the table discussing a variety of topics from books and movies to Swedish society and, of course Melodifestivalen. The young couple are also avid readers, so we enjoyed talking about the books they have read and want to read. Christian is a fan of fantasy books and buys them often. Emma studied interior design, so she has several books on the topic here at home.

The pair are open to hosting visitors from all over the world. They have hosted a few people from France recently and will take in another CouchSurfer tomorrow in addition to me. He is a photographer for Melodifestivalen and will stay with us for a day or two. He has a lot of work to do, so we might not be able to chat for long. Still, it should be an interesting experience hearing about the contest from many different people.

Thursday means a visit with Pia, a representative from the Melodifestivalenklub, a 400 member strong group  who celebrates the contest year round. Pia will give us the scoop on celebrating the six week contest from a club perspective. Emma and I will also attend a CouchSurfer meeting in Karlstad later in the evening, so we'll get to meet more faces who dare to open their homes and lives to people around the world.

Emma has planned a little outing on Friday. We will find some nature reserves and enjoy the brilliant blanket of snow covering the area. We might also be able to try some Nordic Skating. That's where you strap on a pair of blades and skate across the ice as far as your feet will take you, or at least until you run out of usable ice.

Once Friday comes to a close, I'll take a little detour. It's off to Örebro, a city a few hours to the East. There, Jenny Berggren, my favorite artist will perform songs from her solo album, "My Story", at Ritz Nightlcub downtown. I couldn't miss the opportunity to catch the performance since it is so close to Karlstad. Jenny also coached Terese Fredenwall during Mello this year. Maybe she will have some things to tell us about her role in the contest this year? We'll see.

I will be up early tomorrow to get to the arena, a place named after one of Sweden's most beloved coffee brands: Löfbergs Lila Coffee.