First a bit of background information about this "experience" ... At Helsingborg (read part 7) we were all invited to join the band again in Linköping, so of course we all said yes to go ... We were 7 people then - but as time went by people started to drop out both because of various reasons - in the end only 2 of us prevailed and 1 "new-comer" who in fact is no new-comer at all.

We were to meet at Morten's place (NetRoam) on August 16th where people were invited to a pre-birthday party. Myra came by train all across Europe from Turkey to Denmark which took 6 days. R.M.L. came by train/car from Northern Jutland and almost missed the party, but everything went out for the best! For more details of the party, contact us on the message board or community-mail :)

Early Saturday morning (9:15 AM) we left heading towards Linköping - after a few very successful pit-stops on the way, we got to Linköping at about 5 PM. We found the festival-area but weren't allowed inside until 6 PM. E-type's guestlist was a bit late too, so we took a stroll down-town. At the main-entrance we met up with 2 nice Swedish female E-type fans (Lena & Gunilla) who came from Ängelholm. They bought one of our home-made E-type T-shirts and were very ecstatic to enjoy the show.

As we got inside the festival-area we quickly rushed for the stage which was pretty crowded already. We met Lasse P there who - as always - was standing at front row. For the next 4-5 hours the Radio Match-dagen would take place with guest-appearances from Swedish artists like Adorus, Brolle Jr., Josefine Sundström and Sahlene.

E-type - doing his 'sign' on stage

(Photo: NetRoam)

Magnus Uggla (apparently a very big artist in Sweden considering all the massive pushing we experienced at that time) came next and got the crowd rocking. At 11:30 PM it was time for E-type's gig and we were all very excited to see it!

WHAT A SHOW IT WAS!!! We were of course expecting a great show, but they pulled off an astonishing show that nearly kicked our feet away. First big surprise we saw as they entered the stage was a "mysterious" man singing next to Dee - after a few glimpses at him, we found out that it was none other than Martin Sandberg (To the ones who don't know who he is, we can inform you of his better known alias - Max Martin). Throughout the concert a lot of guest-stars were introduced to the public among others were E-type's father (Bo G), Andreas "Adde" Hörnsten (former member of the "Bend Over Band"), Thomas Bergqvist (former member of the "Frying Demons"), Rami, John Amatiello, Tommy Rönngren, Per Aldeheim, Ernst Billgren & Fredrik "Mud" Ekdahl. E-type's father was playing the accordion while E-type himself sang a nice Swedish folk-song which actually sounded quite good.

A lot of "thank-you"-greetings and introductions of the band-members was done throughout the whole concert - at a point E-type wanted to introduce "The world's greatest E-type site" (www.etype.dk) as he said, and asked if www.etype.dk was represented in the audience. Morten waved at him and E-type quickly saw him with a "aahh, there you are". He then asked the audience which song to sing for www.etype.dk and who'd guess that the audience wanted to hear "Banca banca" so that's what they played!

Basically the concert was like any other - of course except the guest-stars running around the stage all the time and Max Martin singing "What a wonderful world" in the middle of the gig.

Max Martin singing 'What  a wonderful world'

(Photo: NetRoam)

When E-type had his drum-solo Max Martin and 2 others came spraying champagne all over him and they sprayed out into the audience as well. At "Campione 2000" E-type was put aside by Andreas Dahlbäck (one of the drummers) because now it was time for him to show that he's better than E-type. So they switched places and Andreas "acted" and sang the rest of the song. Looked interesting to see a bald-headed guy interpreting a long-haired artist :) Yet another surprise were up their sleeves as they - after playing Africa which normally is the final song of the concert - suddenly played a cover-version of Sweet's "Fox on the run" that sounded quite cool! Totally unexpected.

After the awesome concert we had to find eachother since everyone of us (5 all in all) had split up as a result of the massive pushing throughout the concert. We all got backstage and met up with a very sweaty Johan Dereborn. He quickly went for a shower and met us again 10-15 minutes later. In the meantime we met Max Martin and Myra dared to talk to him + got a photo taken with him which made her very happy! Johan returned and spoke a bit with us, and suddenly Morten felt something in his neck which turned out to be E-type kissing him there. We spoke all 7 of us for some time and then we got invited to join the band at "Platå" in Linköping. We went to "Platå" and we arrived there at the same time as the band. Johan took care that we were to be let inside after the tour-bus had left the area, but unfortunately they forgot to mention that to the guards outside "Platå", so they were not willing to help us in any way. We stood outside and tried for 1½ hours to reach Johan, Robert (tour-manager) and even E-type himself, but no luck. So we didn't get in ... as the bus returned, we went and waited there. Myra bought a blue rose from a rose-salesman (there was a lot of those in the city). Suddenly something was going on at "Platå". The doors opened and Dee stepped out. Exactly what Myra had been waiting for. Dee met up with all of us and talked a bit with us, and she gave Myra a kiss and a tight hug. Dee also got the blue rose before she left the bar.

After that we went to our car (it was 4 AM at the time) and drove towards Stockholm. On the way we received an SMS from Johan Dereborn saying "Hilton Hotel ... welcome!". However, we felt way too tired to go there, so we just carried on towards Stockholm to continue our extended weekend in Sweden - a weekend irrelevant to this diary-part. Johan did SMS Morten the day after to wish him a very happy birthday and with wishes to enjoy beautiful Stockholm. Let's just say that we did :)