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28 March 2024

MLTR romances Dubai fans after 10 years, with melodies and magic

Published
By Bindu Suresh Rai

A decade ago, while I was still a lowly cub reporter in Dubai’s media ranks, I was assigned my very first concert review of a Danish band that had stormed its way into the Asian charts, going platinum with songs like ‘The Actor’ and ‘Someday’.

Ten years later, things appear to have come full circle as Michael Learns to Rock or MLTR, as they are popularly known, returned to these shores once again on Thursday, celebrating 25 years of lovelorn ballads and possibly attempting to recapture the magic that once had screaming fans pen letters to them in blood.

As a one-time fan that spent many a childhood day with ‘Played on Pepper’ bunged into the boom box, crooning alongside about love and heartbreak like I had a clue, it was, frankly, a rude shock arriving at the Dubai Tennis Stadium venue and witnessing the fall of the mighty.

Empty seats and a handful of fans – 200 at best if estimated, in a venue that can fill 5,000 – was a far cry from that concert one decade ago in the old Nad Al Sheba stadium when there was a sea of screaming enthusiasts.

At one stage, the former loyalist in me was almost rooting for MLTR to skip the concert than face disappointment with a patchy crowd, which may or may not appreciate their repertoire of classics that were one-time mandatory inclusions on every wedding DJ set list on the continent.

But if there was trepidation, it was soon put to rest when the trio of Jascha Richter on the lead, Kåre Wanscher on drums and guitarist Mikkel Lentz stepped into the spotlight, belting out hit after hit with such enthusiasm and heart like they were facing a crowd of 200,000 in the arena.

Performing on stage for a concert just shy of two hours, all the classics were aired out of the closest and dusted out to remind fans just who MLTR really was.

‘Sleeping Child’, ‘Nothing Ever Lasts’, ‘Out of the Blue’, ‘Animals’, ‘Breaking my Heart, ‘Take Me to Your Heart’, ‘Someday’, yes, we heard it all.

But it was in this encore that MLTR really brought the crowd down, helped, we think, by opening up the gates for the silver seated fans to join the crowds in the gold standing arena, along with opening up the arena doors to invite passersby in for free.

However, for the fans already present at the golden circle, not many seemed to care about this sudden swarm descending, that mesmerised they were as Richter belted out ‘25 Minutes’, ‘Paint My Love’ and ‘That’s Why (You Go Away)’ with a passion that transported many of us back to those childhood days when love was as innocent a feeling like the thread that linked MLTR’s soulful words to our hearts.

Here’s genuinely hoping that there was at least a single moment that Thursday night when MLTR recaptured the magic in the spotlight.