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Swedish Tour 1998

Tour dates | Musicians | Set list | Reviews

I just came back from a 3 day tour in Sweden with Rodriguez...
My role was to play keyboards. The South African band (Big Sky)was booked to do the tour but a week ago Rodriguez said he might not beable to come...so the band's tickets were cancelled...then Rodriguez suddenlycould make it...and then it was too late to get the tickets back...allthe connections were fully booked!
- Mattias Bylund, Sweden, 16th June 1998

Tour Dates

Musicians

The Set list

Reviews

Beatspeak 19th June 1998

Rodriguez In Sweden - The VeryCold Facts
A review by Sugar, read it here.

The Swedish Tour
by Mattias Bylund, June 1998

It started off with national TV on Friday...a morningshow at TV4.
We played "I Wonder" and "Climb Up On My Music".

Later the same day we played an outdoor concertat "Rolanbshovsparken" in Stockholm. It rained...so it was hardto get the audience going.

We finished off with playing "Spy bar"in Stockholm at midnight. Many of the Swedish celebrities were there! Onecomment was: "The first time Dylan played in Sweden there were only50 people there...Now I was one of them when Rodriguez first played here!"

Saturday we travelled toGothenburg where we played outdoor at "Götaplatsen". A beautifulday with a sunny "Avenyyn" (The party street in Gothenburg)...probablythe best concert on the Swedish tour!
The club gig at "Park lane": The place was packed and Rodriguezwas in a very good mood...thanking all those involved on the tour! Evenlonger solos than usual...

Sunday we played at "Mölleplatsen"in Malmö in the south of Sweden. Another sunny day with a lot of peopleby the beautiful mill...It was a sad goodbye but we hope to see him again!

All the time there was people from other countriesthat "grew up" with Rodriguez...over here, sadly, nobody hadheard of him...but now they have!

I wrote to Mattias to ask him some questions about the Swedish tour, here is his reply...

Brian: What band do you normally play in and what kindof music?
Mattias: I play with a big band playing the "Blues Brothers"-style ofmusic... (Himlaväsen). I play with 2 gospel choirs. (Solid Gospel& Gospel Inc.) I've got my own trio, playing weddings and parties witha vocalist. My favorite thing is to do different things all the time, soI try not to be in so many steady bands. Rodriguez was a perfect example!

Had you heard of Rodriguez before?
No...I recognized the "After The Fact" album sleeve though...A friend saw an article in a Swedish paper (Expressen) a week before Igot the call about the "gig".

How long did you have to rehearse?
We rehearsed Wednesday night...Rodriguez came in Thursday...and wewent through the songs one time with him...and then we were off to theTV-studio...Since we left late and got a flat tyre on the way everybodywas totally stressed-out when we got there...so I gotta tell ya - I wasn'tthat sure what was gonna happen when the cameras came on...

Do you like his music and words?
Yes -  I guess we don't listen to the lyrics the same way over here...butI liked the songs a lot!

Do you have any of his CDs?
No - I just got a tape with the songs we were gonna play - so those songsare the only of his songs that I've heard!

See Mattias'Gig list page. It's in Swedish, but you should be able to figure itout - just look for "Rodriguez"!

A Fan's Report
by Chad from Sweden, June 1998

I wrote to you last week asking for some info onthe Rodriguez Swedish performances...well let me start to tell you aboutone of the best nights of my life with the man himself. After finding outwhere he was to perform in Gothenburg, he was to perform at a free concertin central Gothenburg along with Paul Young and another top Swedish artistStaffan Hellstrand (not Jakob Hellman as previously reported) forthe benefit of saving the Baltic Sea from pollution. So my girlfriend andI headed off to Gothenburg on Friday to spend the night and see the concerton Saturday night. Not having been released in Scandinavia, not many peopleknew who Rodriguez was, and most of the crowd had come to see Paul YoungI suspect.

Anyway after he had performed eight superb songsincluding two new tunes....Can't Get Away and Street Boy, Camilla and Idecided to sneak into the VIP enclosure which with the help of some passeddown tricks we suceeded in doing....using my SA (South African) accentin a sea of Swedes we eventually persuaded his promoter Steffan to seeif we could get a photo with Sugarman.... well, Brian to my complete excitement,Steffan returns 15min later with all access passes to go in, includingaccess food and drinks at the after VIP party at "Park Lane"the top celeb hangout in Gothenburg.

WOW!  WOW!  WOW!

So in my slops, shorts and Springbok rugger jerseywe enter his tent......the most generous, gentle down to earth man walksup, shows us to seats next to his and gets us drinks HIMSELF! To cut awonderful story short Camilla and I spent the next six hours in the man'scompany having a complete rave...with other top Swedish celebrities aswell as Paul Young at the after party with as much as you could drink allnight for zilch....kroner!

After his brief appearance at Park Lane, Rodriguezreturned to our VIP table with autographed copies of Live Fact, the liverecording from the Ellis Park tennis ground concert. We left at five inthe morning with the memories of an amazing human...a great evening ...anautographed CD...his pen...his glass....and a big smile.....

We have photos from the whole evening...I thoughtyou might want to hear about his Swedish tour......it was amazing for all.......