Lars Winnerbäck

I don't go to concerts very frequently – I'm a poor student and I just don't have the money. However, about two years ago my friend had two tickets to Lars Winnerbäck, and she gave me one. Those of you who are not Swedes will not have heard about this man. He's awesome, trust me, but don't listen to him – he's a poet, his voice is nice and all, but what makes him great are the lyrics he writes, they are beautiful, and no translation could ever do them justice.
    Anyhow, this concert we went to. Two years ago. Started off with this tiny blonde Swedish girl, wearing a huge black hoodie – Anna Ternheim, her you should listen to though – singing her lovely and sort of sad songs, and then leaving the stage for Winnerbäck to enter. Now, this guy usually has his band with him (Hovet, heh), but this time he was all alone. We – as in the audience – were all sitting down all quiet (well ok not all quiet) listening to this rather scruffy looking man, on a chair with his guitar. Just. Singing.
    I have never cried that much in my life. Ever. And I'm not talking tiny tears in my eyes – I was crying like a baby, for two hours. Obviously there is a much longer story to why his music means so much to me, but that stuff is personal. Point is. I cried. So did my friend and most people in the room. So would a hell of a lot other people have done – including my dear sister Joamna – had they been there. Point is. This man touches people. In an almost creepy – but tey not creepy at all – way.
    So when Rakel – the friend who gave me the ticket that time – asks me in April if I want to go with her to see Lars Winnerbäck in Umeå in July, I said yes almost immediately – even though it cost crazy 350sek (which is a lot for a concert with a Swedish guy). Now, this time was something completely different. It was "Lars Winnerbäck och hovet", which means his band was there too. Which meant they played a lot of newer songs (that I don't know that well), and less sad songs and more like happy ones? But it also meant, way less crying and way more smiling like a maniac. Again – this guy's music makes me feel stuff, and these people, singing together like this, made me wish (again again again) that I belonged to the musical part of our family, and could sing or play any kind of instrument. If I did, me and Joamna would start a band almost as great as Tegan and Sara. Mhm.
    It is probably a good thing that I can't go to concerts too often; they tend to make me feel too much stuff, make me too emotional. That doesn't mean I'm not still annoyed that I missed Regina Spektor when she was in Stockholm in July, or Björk at Arvika a few years back – and if I had any chance of going to a Tegan and Sara concert, I would anything to be able to go... But, yeah, it's probably good that I can't go to concerts too often – 'cause just typing this, just listening to Winnerbäck, thinking about what it is like to see him live.. Well.. Yeah.. I have tears in my eyes...