Concert
Rating: 3. Rating scale: 0 to 5.
Thomas Stenström
Tele2 Arena
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The tour is called “Superlativ tour”, after the latest album “Superlativ 97”. A name that feels a bit ironic considering that Thomas Stenström’s music rarely reaches adjectives in any other inflections than positive. Not in any direction really.
To a large extent, it comes from the fact that he plays so incredibly confidently. Moves on the most trodden paths. Rarely looking further than the obvious and very nearby idols. There is basically at least one – significantly better – Håkan Hellström song for every Stenström creation. When it doesn’t, like when Stenström stands alone with his guitar on a podium out in the audience and does “Gator without names” and the nicely sing-along framed “Auld Lang Syne” pre-Swedish version “Do you see the moon where you are tonight (together again )”, you can replace Hellström with Thåström.
There is nothing wrong with having role models, on the contrary, Hellström himself is sometimes almost too obvious proof of that, but the closer you get to them, the tougher the comparison becomes. Stenström is really on par with his peers and thus the comparisons almost never turn out in his favor.
It is really only in the very freshest songs, above all the excellent and slightly Balearic “Solen”, that Stenström begins to break away from the idols and finds something truly own and forward-looking.
On the other hand: what the Uddevalla singer lacks in song material, he still makes up for with stage presence, energy and commitment. With his British-pop airy movement pattern, he is constantly moving across the stage, includes everyone in the audience and gives incredibly sympathetic little fire speeches against racism and for cultural schools. It may not make you start looking among the superlatives, but at the same time it is not difficult to like him.
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