Simon Mathew, who will represent Denmark at the Eurovision Song Contest in Belgrade, is touring in Denmark and Sweden up until leaving for Belgrade. Last night EuroVisionary was present at one of these concerts to check whether or not he is ready.
The concert that took place at an Open by Night event in Hobro, Denmark was for many people among the audience at good ending on a week with work and school or maybe better phrased as a good beginning of the weekend. It was a small intimate concert with a very relaxed Simon Mathew – although as late as 20 minutes before show start it looked to be a lot more intimate than would be good. Your EuroVisionary reporter felt quite lonely, as a group of 5-6 10-year-old girls were the only ones else to be present! As we got closer to 10 o’clock people however started crowding and within a few minutes the city square was full and shortly after Simon made his appearance.
For half an hour he gave the audience a good mix of songs from his first album as well as some from the second album that is to be released at the end of April. Simon himself started by saying that he would deliver the songs in a more cosy style than normal – this being quite natural, as he didn’t have a band behind him. On stage guitar player Peter Sandegaard accompanied him. It turned out to work very well and Simon appeared to be very comfortable being rather alone with just a few instruments. A guitar and a strong vocal performance is his natural weapon to bind his audience and together with a tambourine and a bottle of sand that was all he had this Friday evening in Hobro.
Simon kicked out with the potential hit song Get me high that features the line “I don’t need a prime time TV show to get me high”. Quite funny considering the fact that he did get his big break through winning the TV show “Dancing with the stars”, but Simon does appear to be strong enough on his own and has more to offer than many of those who have suffered the faith of becoming famous quite fast just to be forgotten soon after.
This concert took place shortly after the final in the Danish X-factor show, a show he seems to have been following as he asked the audience to tell him who won! Or maybe he had picked up on the fact that shortly before the concert a lot of people were crowded in front of a store with a TV in the window tuned in on the show!
Another of the songs he gave us last night can turn out to be quite a rarity as it is not to be found on any album. The song Just sing came along after the songs for the new album had been recorded. Simon told how they all sat together and jammed a bit and suddenly it was there. It includes the phrase that “music can do anything” – now we will just have to wait and see if Simon’s music can do enough to bring Denmark a good result in Belgrade.
He will be representing the country with the song All night long and last night he gave us two versions of it as he started out with a quite interesting acoustic version, but later changed to the version he won the Danish final with. The line right here in the shade was however changed to right here in Hobro to match the location of where we were.
Other songs he sang include Kicking Up A Storm and Harder To Breath on which he asked the audience to join in on the chorus.
Below you can watch two videos. The first one is his Eurovision entry All night long and the second video is an eight minutes compilation from the concert.
In our gallery you can of course see pictures from last nights performance in Hobro, Denmark.
After the concert, we managed to get hold of him for a short video interview.
Simon Mathew’s first album from 2005 is still avalaible through CDON.com where you can of course also pre-order his new album.
Buy Simon Mathew’s first album
Pre-order his new album All For Fame that is to be released 28th of April
