A little sweet and quite psycho – Dagsavisen

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Dice 5)

Ava Max

Center Stage

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Ava Max takes the stage after an impressive, if somewhat short, foreplay from tiktok artist, Emlyn. Many in the audience have already waited two good hours, and they will have to wait an extra quarter of an hour because the pop star is a little late. But there’s no shortage of atmosphere when she finally takes to the stage in a sparkly blue outfit.

– Join me on an evening where we celebrate everything; love, togetherness and not least of all, to leave everything behind to just be on the dance floor, says Ava Max and stands in front of a wall of colored lights. In the background, the intro to the title cut of the pop artist’s second album, Diamonds & Dancefloors, begins to play.

Max was originally going on his first tour with his debut album “Heaven & Hell” in 2020, but had to cancel due to the pandemic. Three years later, she is finally on stage in Oslo with her second studio album. Sentrum Stage is completely sold out, but Max’s signature hairstyle, short on one side and long on the other, is still missing from tonight’s concert.

– Oslo, I’m so glad I’m here, says Ava and gets straight to the point with “My Head & My Heart”. She follows up the song with the equally popular “Who’s laughing Now?”. The American pop singer performs one hit after another, all of which are played with frequency on Norwegian radio. Among Ava Max’s greatest hits, several big international hits have been sampled. “Kings and Queens” samples Bonnie Tyler’s “If I were a woman (and you were a man)”, and on “Million Dollar Baby” we find LeAnn Rimes’ 2000s hit “Can’t Fight the Moonlight”.

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The hits break Max up nicely with some small talk. “This song is about a guy who may or may not be the problem. I’m sure you all have someone like that in your life.” This is how Max introduces song number seven, one of the bigger hits from her second studio album. In the middle of the song, the music stops and she looks out over the audience and asks “whose problem is this?”. Both she and the dancers spend some time looking, but in the end they have chosen. To no one’s surprise, it’s a boy in Russian trousers, because what else could be the problem in Norway in May? In any case, laughter fills the packed concert hall.

A short medley of “Belladonna”, “Not Your Barbie Girl” and “Salt” quickly follows. The songs she has chosen to shorten are surprising due to their popularity, but Max still delivers on his promise to leave everything behind and just be on the dance floor. There is only one song during the set where the audience cannot dance. With “One Of Us”, the tempo slows down and her guitarist comes to center stage.

Soft vocals mixed with parts of powerful belting and an impressive voice register, make it difficult to claim anything other than “Ava Max has an impressive voice”. Not only is this the song where she does her best vocally, but it’s also where we get the pop star’s first real indent. She tells the audience that this is the most personal song on the album, and the acoustic guitar provides the vulnerability that is missing. If it had been a concert twenty years ago, the audience might have pulled out their lighters, but in 2023 at Sentrum Stage, flashlights on smartphones will do.

Time flies when the tempo is picked up again with “Alone Pt. II”, and several lesser-known songs from “Diamonds & Dancefloors” get their moments. The audience does not notice that most of the hit songs are over. The energy keeps going throughout and it can be assumed that many in the audience know Ava Max’s discography relatively well. But one song is still missing as the pop star leaves the stage, her biggest hit ‘Sweet But Psycho’.

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Fortunately, it doesn’t take long before the blonde hair is visible again on stage. – You didn’t think I was done already?, asks the pop artist. And when the well-known “lady scream” fills the room, the energy is higher than during the entire hour that has passed. Several people who have seats get up and start singing. But as suddenly as she starts, she stops and cries out;

– Where is Tix? Is he here now? Get on the scene NOW. I can’t do this song without TIX.

A short time later, the Norwegian artist comes on stage. The guest performance is as surprising to Andreas Haukeland, better known as TIX, as it is to us. An hour earlier, he told Dagsavisen that there was no plan for him to perform. But he also added that the last time they sang together, that wasn’t the plan either, so it definitely wasn’t. “Oh, she’s sweet but a psycho, a little bit Psycho…” begins Ava Max and TIX. The latter’s voice is a little sore because he is in the middle of the Russian season. Last weekend he performed at the Russian meeting in Stavanger. When the song is over, Max says that none of what she is doing now would have been possible without TIX. The audience erupts into cheers again and it’s hard not to smile when she expresses her gratitude.

[ (+) Tid for misantropi ]

It’s safe to say that Ava Max delivers with impressive vocals and catchy music that even gets the adults who have to accompany their daughters to move to the beat. Of course, it helps with sparkling costumes and talented dancers. What else can you really expect from a tour named after diamonds and dance floors? The concert is exactly what it promises: “Diamonds and Dancefloors”, and a little more. We could easily leave it here because usually it is difficult to know what the star will do after the concert is over. But according to TIX, he and Max will hang out after the concert, which was the reason he came.

– After that it’s the Paradise party and then I’m going to roll, says Haukeland to Dagsavisen and laughs. He doesn’t think Max will join the roll then.