Per Gessle is Gyllene Tider’s front man, songwriter and soloist. PDO
Sommertider, hey hey everyone knows ringing. But not everyone knows that the song is by Gyllene Tider.
Even fewer people know that the song does not represent Gyllene Tider’s best, although this Sommartider, released in 1982, has become the band’s direct title song, which plays all over the Nordic countries every summer.
Gyllene Tider has toured Sweden during July, and today, Friday, it will perform in Tammisaari, on Saturday in Vaasa.
The tour has gathered around 200,000 spectators, of which the biggest one, the Gothenburg concert Ullevilla, attracted around 40,000 spectators.
The tickets for the concerts in Finland have also sold well, although few Finns even know the whole band, with the exception of Finno-Swedes. Artists and bands that perform in Swedish are by no means particularly popular among Finnish speakers.
This is a shame. Gyllene Tider’s songs are power-pop, a style of music that the band’s front man Per Gesslen can’t be heard anywhere anymore.
The whole story of Gyllene Tider is extraordinary. It was founded in 1977 in Halmstad, and within a few years the band had become the most popular in Sweden. Hits like Billy, Flickorna on TV2, När vi två blir enand Flicka i en Cole Porter song and of course Sommertider, climbed the charts and became popular on the radio. The public parks were filled with the public at every gig.
All the hits these days are evergreen, songs whose lyrics the audience knows by heart. The songs are cheerfully summery and sometimes also sad, like in the song Billy.
Gyllene Tider broke up in 1985 after trying to conquer the United States with English-language music. The band used the name Roxette at that stage. Gyllene Tider’s frontman, soloist and lyricist and composer of all songs is the same Per Gessle, who later conquered together by Marie Fredriksson with the name Roxette of the world. Gessle did all of Roxette’s hits too.
But let’s go back to Gyllene Tider and the early 80s. Gyllene Tider’s catchy songs are playing on turntables here in Finland as well, and the band even performed here a few times.
The popularity waned here as in Sweden, but in 1996 it started to happen. Gyllene Tider did the Återtåget comeback tour and released new music, hits like Gå&fiska, June, July, August and It’s over now. Characteristic of Gyllene Tider, the songs have clever lyrics, a summery atmosphere, guitars and choruses are catchy. Gyllene Tider’s songs also feature a farfisa organ, which is rarely heard anywhere.
Göran Fritzon at the Farfisa organ. The sound of the organ is easily recognizable. PDO
The audience immediately found the gigs. Over the course of a decade, the band had become not only a band for young people, but a band for the whole nation, whose gigs are attended by the whole family.
And at some point Gyllene Tider started to be associated specifically with summer. This stigma does not bother Gyllene Tider, on the contrary, the band itself feeds this “stigma”.
After a successful comeback in 1996, Gyllene Tider stopped again, when Gessle had enough of Roxette. The other band members returned to their day jobs.
Since 1996, Gyllene Tider has regularly and irregularly gone on tour and released music. In a way, there isn’t even a band. The audience has aged together with Gyllene Tider, and a large part of the audience is over 50 years old, people who listened to the band already in the 80s. However, the band’s status in Sweden is such that a new generation always discovers it.
– This is our eighth summer tour, and our fifth return tour. If we ever say we stop, don’t believe it, Per Gessle sculpted at Ullev’s gig last month.
The public knows this. The public knows that Gyllene Tider’s gigs are feel-good gigs, where you sing together and enjoy catchy music and summer.
– They will definitely come here again in five years. Let’s see, after all, the 65-year-old lady told her husband as the crowd, including me, left Ullevi.
None of the songs released in recent years have become insane hits, and Gyllene Tider does not tease the audience by playing new songs. Gessle knows that the public wants his Sommartider and other old hits. And the audience also gets them.
Micke “Syd” Andersson, Per Gessle, Göran Fritzon, Mats MP Persson and Anders Herrlin in the early 80s. The composition of the band has remained the same all year. PDO