Midsommar is an ancient summer tradition celebrated in the countryside and gardens with family members, friends and neighbours. People wear colourful clothes and flowers and dance around a flower-decked pole. Sometimes they even dress up as frogs – it’s all part of the fun. For the second consecutive year, the singer Eskelina will be leading the singing and guiding our steps.
At 7:30 pm it’s time for the baritone-voiced glam rocker Jelly Crystal to take the stage. His early songs took on art-rock, but in recent years, he’s expanded his range to funk, soul, and R’n’B, all coming together under his alt-pop umbrella. His taste and the regard in which the Swedish music scene holds him are proven by the names he’s worked with: Alice Boman, Stella Explorer, Seinabo Sey, Mr. Tophat, and more. In 2021, he released his debut album Freak Show, which gained support from the likes of The Line of Best Fit (“A singer with real star power!”), Wonderland (“If you’re a David Bowie fan, be sure to check out Jelly Crystal.”). At the end of 2023, he released the critically acclaimed album Prince.
Jelly Crystal will be followed on stage by singer-songwriter Alice Boman and her gentle, melancholic atmospheres. Her latest album The Space Between is a reflection about silence and space, with a broader palette than that of debut album Dream On. Imbued with an enveloping warmth which radiates from Boman’s gossamer-light vocals, arrangements are lightly embellished with shimmering guitar (‘Space’), accordion (‘Night and Day’), twinkling, music box effects (‘On and On’) and muted brass, low in the mix (‘Soon’). The album is very much a journey, charting Boman’s progress from fear (‘Honey’, ‘Maybe’) to the “place of tenderness” she ultimately arrives at on ‘Space’, the album’s exquisite closing track. Boman’s music has featured in smash Amazon series Transparent, HBO’s Wanderlust, and Netflix’s 13 Reasons Why.
As soon as the gate opens and throughout the evening, café FIKA will be selling Swedish drinks and specialities – as well as alternatives for people who aren’t keen on pickled herring!
With the support of IKEA.
Useful information
- Admission free through the gate at 10 rue Elzévir.
- Gate opens at 5:30 pm.
- There will be two dance sessions lasting 20-30 minutes each from approximately 6 pm.
- The traditional singing and dancing will be followed by two concerts by Jelly Crystal and Alice Boman starting at 7:30 pm.