Concert
Rating: 2. Rating scale: 0 to 5.
Alphaville
Scene: Philadelphia Convention Centre, Stockholm
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The nostalgia factor should not be underestimated in troubled times. That’s why a synthpop band like Alphaville continues to draw people despite fans competing in reports of how bad it was last time. “Hoping for the best but expecting the worst”, sings the only remaining original member Marian Gold in “Forever young”, and rarely has a lyric summed up the feeling around a concert as well. He turns 70 this spring and his voice has been one of his weaknesses in recent years. But now it carries through a track list that summarizes 40 years in 16 songs including the b-side “The elevator” interspersed between the hits.
The gig is not as bad as feared, but what is delivered is often far from really good. On a Saturday night in February, it can still go relatively far with a dedicated audience as traction. Cynically enough, also thanks to a social development that charges many of the songs from the Cold War 1980s with new relevance. Not least “Next generation”, about how world leaders destroy for future generations, feels at least as relevant today with visual references to both war and climate crisis in the fund.
Gold still has something he passionate about mediating. Therefore, it is incomprehensible why he insists on riding around with a drummer worse than Depeche Mode marauder Christian Eigner and a claw-fingered keyboardist. It has to be said that Alphaville had a highly varied sound even in the early years, but letting this gang smash a large part of the material or go wild with whining guitar solos is musical self-harm.
This year saw the album “Eternally yours” with hits interpreted by the Deutsches Filmorchester Babelsberg. Cool synth met symphonic arrangements with rare neat and driven elegance. Gold is touring in parallel with this unusually successful concept that would have admittedly been better suited to an unsexy concert venue like the Filadelfia Convention Centre. The buttery “Salvation” track “Flame” seems to have gotten lost from Melodifestivalen. But this evening there is, after all, something else to be happy about. In particular, a literally dazzling “Sounds like a melody”.
