Electric Boys was a glam/funk rock band from Sweden, famous in the late 80ies and early 90ies, but broke up after only three albums. In 2009, Conny Bloom and the rest of the most famous line-up resurrected the band and released a new album in 2011. Here in 2012, they were out touring, and their path took them to Tivolirock for one of the stops.

Even with their fame in the early days, all I ever really got round to listening to was their breakthrough hit All Lips N’ Hips, and the collaboration they did with the Swedish comedian Micke ‘Svullo’ Dubois in his song För Fet För Ett Fuck, but I still felt it would be the right thing for Metalmoments to check them out as we were both here.
Electric Boys started the concert off with another one of their early day hits, Psychedelic Eyes, and as we had up to this point only seen local bands on the upcoming stage, it was easy to see and feel the increase in stage presence and performance quality. The band was playing the Tivoli stage, the smaller of the two main stages, and this together with the backdrop which was filled by the bands twisting and turning logo made for a nice setting for the bands show.
Visually I was presented with pretty much what I had expected, what with the style of clothes they were wearing, and I was glad to see that they still know how to rock a stage after all these years. Especially bassist Andy ‘A.C.* Christell was fun to watch with his groovy performance, but he entire band was into the show and helped set a good mood.
The real surprise for me came in the sound of the band – I had imagined something like straight up glam, but with Bloom’s now older and deeper voice, and the style of some of the songs played, I got much more of a blues rock feeling from the concert, and I liked it.

Bloom was also good at involving the now much larger audience (compared to the earlier shows we had watched), and during Electrified he got a ‘na na na’ sing-along going which was nice, but I think he crossed a line somewhere when he also wanted us to sing along to something like ‘bopetibop’. It was a bit more than my metal mind could take…
Other songs, like Mary In The Mystery World, needed no incitement from the frontman’s side to get the audience singing, proving that Electric Boys had a nice following of real fans here; this was another little surprise for me as I had apparently misjudged the crowd as being mostly just everyday people out to have a good time without necessarily knowing any of the bands too well. It was of course mostly the front which was happy to provide backing vocals and raised arms, but all the way in the back, people were also nodding enthusiastically along to the music. It only raised the mood as the biggest hit, All Lips N’ Hips, which was used as the grand finale of the show, saw Bloom put away the 12-string guitar he had donned especially for this song and get down into the security pit, singing the chorus along with the audience as he was hanging on the fence.
Actually, Bloom made a number of instrumental changes though the show which also saw him play both a regular guitar and a harmonica, all helping to keep the concert varied and interesting.

I wouldn’t say that this concert has turned me into an Electric Boys fan, but it has certainly raised my thoughts about the band, and it was a very pleasant I time spent in their company this afternoon.

Setlist (incomplete):

Psychedelic Eyes
Father Popcorn’s Magic Oysters
Electrified
Mary In The Mystery World
Tear It Up
Angel In An Armoured Suit
Rags To Riches
Bad Motherfunker
Captain Of My Soul
All Lips N’ Hips