There were other movies before “Titanic” that made ladies sigh after Leonardo DiCaprio, and “Romeo + Juliet” was one of them. Released somewhere in 1996, I don’t remember seeing the movie till a few years later and when I did, well, I wasn’t impressed. However, by the time I saw the movie I had to face “Lovefool” by The Cardigans on repeat on all possible music channels in all 3 versions of the video. And I didn’t like it, I didn’t understand much of the song or its videos but it has a catchy tune and could easily turn into an earworm that gets stuck in your brain to the level of annoyance. So after this experience with the band, imagine how I felt when they put out “My Favourite Game” in 1998. By then I was already going back to listening to rock music and breaking away from MTV pop. Its catchy energetic beat was totally different from the previous song I knew from them, and the video in which Nina was chaotically driving a car in the wrong lane ending in a car crash and being hit by a stone in the head at the end were the reasons I paid attention to this particular track. This song was the reason why I was at today’s concert till the very end: it was the last one in the setlist and I really wanted to listen to it live.

Listening to The Cardigans 21 years after getting to know them brings me back to my habit to seeing barely now bands that I used to listen to years ago. The Cardigans were super popular during my gymnasium (junior high) and high school years so I couldn’t have missed tonight’s show.

Another hit from them was “Erase/Rewind” that came with a completely different concept for the video, Star Wars inspired, the song caught my attention not as much for being endlessly broadcast on TV or radio, but because I discovered it on the OST of “The Thirteenth Floor” and it came as such a natural ending to that movie that I actually ended up watching because of HIM’s “Join Me (In Death)” video.

About 4 years later the band came back with a dark-haired Nina, a new album and new videos among which the video for “For what It’s Worth” which I really liked for the bunny costumes, the train and the carrot-celery cocktail. Not to mention that I think it is a good song and the atmosphere of the video is depressively beautiful.

After that I switched my interest to different sounds and lost track of the band and their music. Also music channels turned into these strange reality-shows broadcasters and left the music behind so I stopped watching them.

However, today’s concert was a must see and must listen. But first of all: I froze! With extra sweaters and well prepared for a cold evening I still had a hard time holding it together till the last beat. Other than that, it was super nice to see them, for what they represented 20 years ago, for their music and for the fact that Nina’s voice sounds exactly the same live as it does on the recordings and that it seems that she sings so easily. I must say that I liked the most the first and last track of the evening: “Erase/Rewind” and “My Favourite Game”, performed in such ways that really brought back memories of feelings one had when listening to them a long time ago.

And with these being said, I can now say that the Summer season of concerts in Gröna Lund has officially started.