An Evening for Everyone Who's Been Waiting for Seinabo Sey's Comeback.

For over a decade, she has reached a large Swedish and international audience with her powerful soul voice. But Seinabo’s career has not only been marked by successes. After struggling with panic attacks, stage fright, and existential doubts about the artist life, she recently sought the comfort of her own mother tongue. This resulted in the album Välkommen hem – her first album in Swedish.

She is now touring with her new material, and tonight she played at Förbindelsehallen in Stockholm. A show where the band Sunnan and the artist Amanda Bergman warmed up the audience with their own full-length sets.

It’s barely two years since Seinabo last performed in Stockholm, then on Gröna Lund's main stage. Tonight’s concert could be described as a comeback, especially on a personal level.

Through a veil of smoke, Seinabo Sey steps onto the stage. The musicians have just been applauded in by the audience. Seinabo opens with three consecutive songs: “Pretend”, “Hard Time”, and “Never Get Used To”. The volume and intensity in the venue have increased several notches compared to when the other artists played. Only after the third song does the sequence break. It's clear that Seinabo enjoys being on stage again after some time away, as she receives the audience’s applause and cheers with a wide smile.

We hear the song “Before” and in the following interlude, Seinabo says she has had a truly luxurious day, having come to Stockholm and performed with her friends Amanda Bergman and Sunnan. She also shares that she was worried "not a single soul would show up" for tonight’s concert, and she is grateful and happy for all of us who came.

The next song is the evening’s first from her new record. We hear “Crazy”, which Seinabo describes as “damn hard” to sing and asks the audience to help. The song has some hip-hop influences and there are many words to speak-sing at high speed, but she manages well and gets to recover a bit in the next song "Gudarna" which is at a slower tempo. That one too is from the new album Välkommen hem.

The contrasts between the early pop successes and the newer, more subdued material become central this evening. After a long guitar solo by guitarist Manuel, Seinabo explains that she’s waited the whole set for this and also shares that she’s now started picking up her older tracks again because she thinks she was “smarter when she was younger.” She explains this a bit more, though I don’t remember exactly what she said, only that it sounded really good. So, she’s probably still quite smart.

During the song “Shores”, the band Sunnan is invited up on stage to the audience’s delight and helps with the vocals. The band members act as backup singers in a number that elicits the strongest audience response of the night so far.

The last song of the night is the super hit Younger, which is Seinabo’s most played song and which was the launchpad of her career. Last song and last, of course the band comes back after the cheers and the audience’s obligatory “One more time! One more time!”

When the keyboardist starts the intro for the first encore, Sey stops him with a joking remark that “we’re not playing that song now”, now we’re playing “Slott av luft.” She continues, “now you know what the next song will be.” And the next song and the evening’s finale is, indeed, “You.” Amanda Bergman comes up on stage and sings the first verse. The second verse becomes a duet where the two singers stand holding each other.

It’s a beautiful final scene, and I hope the evening has strengthened Seinabo’s confidence for upcoming shows. The audience will show up, that’s for sure.