The Tivoli, Helsingborg 12.11.10: review by Kjell Gullberg

Here is a very nice review of Friday night's show by my good friend Kjell - thanks again for sharing it with us :)

The show began 45 minutes late, but perhaps that's the usual Tivoli style... I'd never been there before! Nisse, Adam and Jacob entered the stage first. We were then all just waiting for a few minutes, while the intro to "Part Of It" started... and the crowd got going when Salem entered the stage.

I really like this song... the "ah-ah-aoah-aohahhh-ah-ah" part always make me think of Gregorian music, which is something quite different from pop! But not in Salem's world, of course...The next thing I noticed was that I've never heard Salem sing that well during a live concert before. Excellent!

The second song was "It's True"... in quite a different way, that I really liked. About the next thing Salem told us was in fact that this concert was going to be different... he told us that the autumn tour always consists of re-arranged versions of the songs, this time in a more "clubby" (electronica) way. Which is of course perfect at a club as The Tivoli... Salem even warned listeners about the different feeling compared to the summer shows!

Anyway, I can already tell you that I found this "club version" of Salem's music very good and creative during the entire concert... in fact, for me this was his best gig I've seen with Salem (although this was my first club experience).

At this point, I've lost the order of the set list (sorry, I'm getting too old I guess!).

Anyway, much of the material came from the "Ignore This" album. Some of the songs were "4 O'Clock", "This Is For", and "Split My Personality".

During "I'm So Happy" (if I'm not mistaken), Adam played a "loop" on his acoustic guitar that instantly reminded me of "I'm on Fire" with Bruce Springsteen. Quite amazing... and at the end of the song I got a U2 feeling. That's one of the things I really like with Salem's music: It is so diverse, with absolutely no borders in any musical direction. Anyway, we all sang along in the "la-la-la" part, with maximum joy (yes I know that the lyrics aren't really that positive, but still)!

"Bloody Breakfast" was (at least to me) another "goose pimpler". Those chords in the "oh-oh-oh" part are just amazing. It gives me the ultimate "club feeling"! In the end of this song (I think!) Salem played a wonderful solo on the keyboard, completely different from the CD version.

Salem also played "Astronaut" (he restarted it once in order to get the audience more alert - in his usual charming way with the words "Please enjoy this since it's for once a hit song!"). By this point, the crowd had belonged to Salem for a long time...

"Roxy" and "It's Only You (Part II)" were there as well. Both are favourites of mine. Oh, I forgot "Twelve Fingers".

On the negative side, there was some song in the middle of the concert that sounded a little uninspired... or perhaps it was just me that wasn't in the mood for it.

The final song was "Keep On Walking", another crowd-pleaser of course. Well, not really final... we managed to get two encores. Salem had a little discussion with us whether they should play something up-tempo or slow... and it turned out we got both! First, the wonderful "Virgin Mary" in its usual "rocket speed" pace. Nisse did a good job at the drums... Second, "Brooklyn Sun". We all sang along, once again...

As for Damien Adore, there was no "Backseat". Damien Adore is, as I understood it, the "electronica" part of Salem, the theme of this evening. Salem even claimed that all his music is in "club style", it's just "stripped" before it's released on CD (and played on TV). Well, I wouldn't agree about the "all his music" part, but never mind...

The review in Helsingborgs Dagblad was not as positive as this one... my only comments to it are that, first, "Dream girl" wasn't even played... and second, the synthesizer was not "self playing", Salem definitely played it for real (although some sound was pre-recorded, no-one pretended playing it).

Salem really seemed to enjoy the gig... he was jumping around now and then, and also forgot the lyrics a few times (which, by the way, made us in the audience love him even more). His talking and joking between the songs charmed us as usual.

After about one hour (a little short, if you ask me), my so far best Salem Al Fakir experience ended for this time. Over and out.