![]() “Nothing has ever happened up there on that scale,” says Pär. The population of Övertorneå is 1,900, and 1,500 turned up to the gig. The first gig of this leg was in Övertorneå, a tiny town in the far north of the country on the border with Finland. The idea was to bring the Sabaton show to people who might not otherwise be willing or able to travel see them. This run of shows is the polar opposite of that. Most bands play Stockholm, Gothenburg, Malmö and maybe a couple of other medium-sized cities in the south and call it a tour. Eighty per cent of Sweden’s population of 10 million lives in the lower third of a country that measures almost 1,000 miles from top to bottom but just 300 miles at its widest point. History and location aside, Visby is a typical stop-off on this tour. I’ve spent more than a month of my life here, but I’ve never been sober before.” There were knights jousting in the moat next to the walls. ![]() “I didn’t know anybody, I came over on the ferry on my own. “I came here for several years,” he says, sitting on the tour bus a couple of hours before the show. The young Pär’s interest in live action role-playing drew him to medieval re-enactment circles, which in turn brought him here as a teenager. Every summer, Visby holds one of the biggest medieval events in Europe, its population of 24,000 swelling to upwards of 100,000 for one epic week of fighting, jousting and drinking. This the first time Joakim has been to the island, but Pär came here regularly as a teenager. Aside from the odd bar and restaurant, pretty much everything else is closed. Still, the people who said that nothing happens in Visby in February weren’t lying. ![]() Crumbling fortifications and the ruins of churches offer glimpses of past glories and the fates that befell them. A cathedral whose origins date back to the 13th century looms over cobbled streets and charming old buildings. ![]() The crew for their upcoming UK shows and the European arena tour that follows currently numbers 141, including drivers, caterers and the people who take care of the laundry. This is a scaled-down operation by their standards: just the three articulated trucks and two tour buses carrying the band, their equipment and their stage set. They arrived here yesterday via ferry from the Swedish mainland. “We’re only the third Swedish band to headline Wembley Arena, after Abba and Roxette,” says singer Joakim Brodén proudly, as we sit in the lobby of the waterfront hotel that has been commandeered as a temporary barracks by the band and several of their 50-strong crew and entourage. In April, they kick off a full European tour with four UK arena dates, featuring support from Babymetal and Finnish panto-metallers Lordi. A 2,000-capacity ice hockey hall on a windswept Baltic island is a long way from the kind of places that Sabaton normally play these days. ![]()
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