Pages


Sunday 1 August 2010

Another Piteå review

In her review of Salem's Friday night show at http://www.pitea-tidningen.se/pitea/artikel.aspx?ArticleId=5511237, Piteå-Tidningen's Anna Holmberg wasn't very positive: "...PDOL made a big mistake to put him on the big stage...he did not manage to reach out to the audience... I have never seen such a distracted and restless audience during the concert yesterday."

The reviewer highlighted that Salem Al Fakir "is designed for a small stage with an intimate contact with his fans", and she felt that on a smaller stage, with a different set list, it may have been more positive.

Both Norrbottens-Kuriren (see previous post) and Piteå-Tidningen were critical in their comments about Friday's show. If any of you were at Piteå, do you think the reviewers were right or wrong?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi! I thought I could give my point of view of the show since I was there and saw him in Piteå :) I have seen him three times before and I really didn't understand why they gave him such bad critic. He was as great as always, BUT seemed tired (which isn't suprising considering his busy schedul)And about the comment that he didn't reach out to the audience: He asked the audience how many that was watching the show for the first time and there was a lot new people and few "old" people. I stood in the front were there was maybe more "old" fans, and we were all dancing and clapping our hands. And he did say that we were marvelous ;) Maybe the reviewers stood in the back and didn't get as great vibes as we did? / Lisa

Laura (EuropeCrazy) said...

Hi Lisa,

I'm so glad you got in touch because I wanted to hear the views of true fans who know what they are talking about :)) rather than those reviewers who find it so easy to criticise.

I'm not surprised that Salem is feeling tired now, as it's been such a long tour and of course Sweden is such a big country to cover, with lots of travelling around. Also he hasn't been feeling very well recently, but the reviewers forgot to mention that too.

I don't know why the reviewers felt that he didn't reach out to the audience either, as in my opinion there are no other performers around who connect as well with an audience as Salem does.

I know Salem has a lot of new fans who maybe aren't so familiar with all of his material as we are, so maybe that's why some of them didn't react as enthusiastically as the "old" fans?

The important thing of course is that the audience have a good time, and I'm glad you really enjoyed the show - it sounds as if you had a great night there!

Anonymous said...

I completely agree that there are many new fans that aren't so familiar with all of his material and maybe even unaware of his competence! It seemed like some in the audience became unconsentrated and restless during the calm songs especially when it became more instrumental and less singing. They had come to listen to hits like Keep on Walking and 4'clock. But for me Salems songs are more than that.. You kind of have to listen to the whole package:) And maybe not everybody(including the reviewers ;)) listen beyond the hits and more ingoing into the composition and instruments.
I love the mixture between the up-tempo and calm songs. And his musical creativeness was what made me love his music when I saw him in my home town 2007=) And ofcores his joyfulness which made me and everybodyelse smile this night on PDOL aswell! Yes I really enjoyed the show and
I think I can live on the concert for many weeks to come considering he pointed at me when he joked about the song NOT to sing on your wedding ;) Because I started laughing before he even started singing.. / Lisa