Kim Wilde on iconic time travel – but the mega-hits are delayed

Date: 26 July 2024
Published in: Hallandsposten (Sweden)
Written by: Jan-Owe Wikström

She has toured with megastars such as Michael Jackson and David Bowie and, along with Debbie Harry in Blondie and Chrissie Hynde in The Pretenders, belonged to the pop queens of the 1980s. But 43 years, 14 studio albums and 30 million records sold after the gigantic breakthrough with “Kids in America”, Kim Wilde herself has reached icon status and reaches out to new generations.

She shows that at Solgården in Tylösand – one of two stops in Sweden on her European tour, which will eventually make its way out into the world with Australia as its destination in October.

But she saves the best for last. Almost everything. But then it will also be a hit fireworks of a rarely seen kind. Instead, the now 63-year-old pop queen, in an all-black suit with red fingerless gloves, steps in at 21.00 sharp to a short version of the rockabilly homage “Rage to love” from the album “Teases and dares” which turns 40 this year, which is followed by great “Never trust a stranger”.

Cocky “Water on glass” from the self-titled debut record (1981) raising the temperature among the 1,800 people inside Solgården and everyone in the dunes outside. 1,800 people had come to Solgården to see Kim Wilde.

– Hello, everyone out there on the beach, Kim waves before stompy “Words fell down” and gets a pink T-shirt thrown up on stage with the text “Kim Wilde – queen of the 80’s”. But it is with the first really big hit, “Cambodia”, that it really breaks loose and the whole audience turns into a football choir. And everyone can tell – the nasally girlish voice that sounds like she constantly has a cold is well preserved. The calm “Your’s ’til the end” will (unfortunately) be the only contribution from the latest record “Here come the aliens” (2018), but Wilde says that a new record is recorded for release early next year.

– So there will be more pop from Wilde Camp! she asserts. Therefore, “Anyplace, anywhere, anytime” also feels like a refreshing happy pill and that it sounds like the shyer cousin of “99 red balloons” is perhaps not so strange considering that it was Nena who made the original with Wilde as a duet partner. For a while, the pop icon loses her grip on the audience with rather bland “Love is holy”, “Love in a natural way” and “Stone” and I wished she had instead picked up the rocking slapstick “1969” and sassy “Kandy Krush” from the last plate in the set instead.

But soon everyone wakes up when Kim first introduces the band, including little brother Ricky “I’m an astronaut” Wilde on guitar, who is behind most of her hits, and niece Scarlett Wilde, who has contributed several songs to the upcoming record.

And then declares: – We live in tough, dark times. So who wants to go back to the 80s with me? Everyone wants that. Because the finale’s hit dose of nostalgia trip is hard to beat. From the mighty “View from a bridge” to the pop praline “Chequered love” before the synth-bubbling The Supremes cover “You keep me hangin’ on” ends the regular set after an hour and a quarter. But of course there will be more.

– I dedicate this song to everyone who loves live music, she introduces “You came” – now wearing a red military hat and a glittering cloak in the same colour. And of course it will be like the grand finale – the mega-hit “Kids in America” ​​that got the whole world down and now transforms Solgården into a singing, bouncing dance floor.

By the way, did you know that Kim Wilde has been the host of the English TV series “Better gardens” and has written two books about gardening?!