Benny Anderssons Orchestra (BAO) at Globen 2007

When we a couple of times visited events with BAO at Skansen, the dance floor was extremely crowded. In October 2007, there was another event with BAO, but this time at the considerably larger Globen Arena.

In advance I had wondered how many visitors that would visit the event, and if it would feel deserted. I got a first answer already when we entered the underground station at Slussen, the platform was crowded.

When the train arrived, there was not room for everyone. Of course not all of them were on their way to Globen, but I had feeling that a considerable part shared our destination.

That was confirmed when we arrived to Globen - the queues at the entrances were considerable.

A piquant detail was a person selling ear plugs outside. I can immediately reveal that they were not needed!

Once inside we went to our seats, but left them again and did not return to them again during the evening.

At the floor in Globen a large dance floor was marked, with fences and coloured lamps. There was space outside the fence at all sides for standing audience, and at the right side there were tables and benches.

The stage was located at one of the long sides of the dance floor. There were also a number of large screens, giving both those in the gallery and the dancers possibility to take a closer look at the musicians.

When the dance began, it became soon obvious that despite the large dance floor it became crowded. And despite all people there, there were still rather many sitting in the gallery. The audience was mainly middle-aged and older, the youth people we saw were clearly a minority.

Right from the beginning a small part of the dance floor close to the stage was occupied by listeners Later in the evening this non-dancing audience increased and occupied some 10 metres of the dance floor at the stage side.

Together with BAO, the singers Helen Sjöholm and Tommy Körberg took part.

Despite the standing audience, there was still a large area available for dance. But many were eager to do so! As was the case at the earlier dance events with BAO, there were dancers of all types on the floor, and also all areas outside the dance floor not occupied by tables or people were used for dance..

Not everyone on the floor had yet understood how to control the movement in the dance. It was not at all uncommon to meet dancers heading "backwards".

During such circumstances some stops and pushes can not be avoided, but speaking for my own, I enjoy seeing everyone taking part in and enjoying dance regardless of skills. So a few pushes and stops and numerous wriggles during the night is a small price to pay for this.

The music contained to a large extent gammaldans, particularly waltz. But during the evening there were many types of dances, such as schottische, polka, snoa, some music suitable for hambo, mazurka, foxtrot, bugg, modern waltz, menuet, some polskor, but also some latin american and some music with influence from rock.

There were also a few melodies when almost none danced.

When "Gamle Svarten" was introduced, the audience performed the song in the chorus. For some reason it seemed that it was mainly the female part of the audience that was singing.

All music and song sounded excellent. Of course the musicians and singers were very good, but also the sound arrangements worked very good.

The long lasting memory from the evening for me is astonishment. What makes so many people to visit and obviously appreciate Benny Andersson's music and dance events?

BAO:s music, musicians and singers are admittedly of top class, but besides BAO there are several others who play to dance in an enjoyable way. Many of those who clearly enjoyed the dance with BAO should probably be able to enjoy many other nice dance events?

The only answer I can find is that besides the quality of the music, the fame of the performers entice many.

We are any way very grateful to Benny and BAO, both for their music and that they are so successful with getting so many people out onto the dance floor.