Italian-Norwegian singer Alessandra Mele is best known for competing on behalf of Norway in the 2023-edition of the Eurovision Song Contest. With ‘Queen of Kings’ she managed to place 5th in the final. The singer played a show in Hamburg’s Mojo Club as part of her The Queen is Back Tour on November 23rd.
As there was no support for this night, it was Alessandra who was on stage right away, joined by Markus Anskau on the keys and Markus Vikstvedt on the drums. As they walked on stage, a voice-over could be heard, saying “With winds still huge and feathers so colorful that only those who have learned to see with their heart can actually see them. (…) And the only feather that stays is the gray one pretending to protect you, who really is the feather that’s holding you back, that’s stopping you from flying. Ladies and gentlemen, tonight, we say bye to the feather of fear’. Then the intro to the first song of the night, ‘Queen Almighty’, started.
Mele said in German “Guten Abend Hamburg, wie geht’s?” (transl. “Good evening Hamburg, how is it going?), then continued her set with ‘Non Stop’. Afterwards, she thanked the crowd for being here, talked about her being both Italian as well as Norwegian, and a fan shouted in Italian “Ciao, mi chiamo Anna” (trans. “Hello, my name is Anna”), to which she responded happily “Hello, ciao. Ciao bellissimo” (transl. “Hello, hi. Hello, very beautiful). This was followed by the song ‘Toscana’ from her newly released EP Peperoncin. Fans sang along loudly to this song, as they did during ‘Supposed To Be’ as well. The latter was accompanied by excited clapping. Mele then expressed her immense gratitude for being able to tour in Europe and passing through Hamburg, which was followed by loud applause. Then she talked about her EP not only being about”‘being spicy or being strong, it is also about vulnerability”. Continuing with the song ‘I Need You To Love Me‘, which Mele wrote about the ability of someone being able to hurt you because you care so deeply for them and about allowing yourself to be that vulnerable.
For ‘Easy To Love You‘, Mele went into the crowd. Fans automatically made space for her, which she was positively surprised by. To pass time until her drummer was ready on stage, she took photos with fans, hugged them and cracked jokes. The song ‘Bad Bitch’, for which she returned to the stage, had people passionately singing the song back to her. It was followed by ‘Marameo’, a song fully in Italian! Next, she introduced ‘Heavy’, which she dedicated to “a particular person that’s going through a tough time”.
She went off stage before the encore. Dramatic and powerful music started playing as the introduction to ‘Queen Of Kings’ started. Mele returned to the stage and a memorable entrance was created. Towards the end of the song she thanked her band, the night’s sound engineer and once again the people in the room for having come to the show. Mele ended the night with ‘Pretty Devil’, sounding out with fans clapping along to the song. Before she and her band went off stage for the final time, they took a photo with the audience, instead of ‘say cheese’, she said “say bratwurst”, which made people including herself laugh. Just having been at a super fun show, stepping outside, people were surprised by streets covered in snow – which made the night extra magical.
