Alcazar’s Last Show @ Stockholm Pride

If you want to see me on the dance floor, there’s one song that’s guaranteed to do it every time – “Crying At The Discotheque” by Alcazar. It’s one of my all-time favourite songs. It brings a smile to my face every time I hear it, and it’s guaranteed to get me on the dance floor within seconds.

The musical groove pumps along nicely – thanks to a sample of “Spacer” by Sheila B and Devotion – and the lyrics are such great fun.

The golden years
The silver tears
You wore a tie like Richard Gere
I wanna get down
You spin me around
I stand on the borderline
Crying at the discoteque

Alcazar were head and shoulders above every other act at this year’s Stockholm Pride Party Night. They were on stage for close to an hour, as they sang and danced to quite a few of their hit songs. The energy, the enthusiasm, and their professionalism was so clearly evident.

And there was a lot of love in the room, as this was Alcazar’s final performance. Sure, they’ve broken up before, and there have been a couple of lineup changes. But this time around, I think it’s for good which is sad. They’ve given me many moments of musical joy, for which I’m very grateful.

But yeah, compared to everyone else performing, they were sooooo great. Almost everyone else on the bill were pretty average in my humble opinion. Quite a few of the acts were pretty second-rate, in my view, and a few of them failed to make any connections with the audience. “She had a nice dress” was the most positive thing my friend Graeme could come up with to describe one of the acts.

The biggest surprise of the night for me, though, was the performance by Anthony Callea, the Australian singer.

*Anthony Callea performs at Stockholm Pride*

Anthony Callea at Stockholm Pride — *If you squint, you can probably see me in the audience just to the right of Anthony Callea – pic from his Facebook page*

“Has anyone been to Australia?”, he asked the crowd at Stockholm Pride, closely followed by “Is anyone from here FROM Australia”. There was a slight look of surprise on his face when he looked down into the crowd and saw two old blokes standing in the second row putting up their hands.

Anthony came on stage after the “AIDS Tribute” that is a fairly regular part of Pride activities around the world. As he sang “Somewhere Over The Rainbow”, hundreds of coloured balloons were released into the sky.

He has a great voice and sings with a lot of passion and enthusiasm, which is something I didn’t know about him. I didn’t watch the series of “Australian Idol” that he was on, and have only followed his career by what I’ve seen in the papers. I’m not sure if I’ll become a Callean (I think that’s what his fans are called), but I certainly did enjoy his performance and will probably keep an ear out for what he does in the future.

After about six hours standing up, and hardly moving, Graeme and I found a nice comfortable seat and had a couple of drinks before heading off home. Holidays can be pretty exhausting.