In October 2024, Swedish-Venezuelan pop singer Omar Rudberg embarked on his first European tour. Rudberg used to be a part of Sweden’s biggest boyband FO&O before going solo and is famous not only for his music, written in English, Spanish and Swedish, but also for his role as Simon in the Netflix series Young Royals. His tour was so successful that he immediately planned a second tour in support of his ‘Every Night Fantasy’ EP, released during the previous tour. On February 10th, 2025, he took to the stage of Melkweg Max in Amsterdam, only a few months after he sold out the smaller room, Oude Zaal, across the hall.
Slightly before 19:00, the doors to the venue opened to let in 1500 fans eagerly awaiting their chance to see Rudberg live. There was no support act, which meant that the fans had to entertain themselves for one hour. They took this as a challenge because the audience was enthusiastic and loud right from the start. In the audience, fans watched scenes of Young Royals – and started cheering whenever Rudberg appeared on the screen. They cheered even louder when at 20:00, Rudberg appeared in real life, on the stage right in front of them.
Before Rudberg came on, his band appeared in silver glitters. For this tour, Rudberg was joined by drummer Simon Santunione – who was also carrying a lovely pink cowboy hat on his back – and synth orchestrator who doubled as guitarist, Isak Nygren. A short spoken intro sounded out introducing the crowd to the show before the first notes of Rudberg’s song ‘Bye Bye’ began. For this show, Rudberg chose to wear an iconic black glitter suit and black sunglasses (which he took off quite fast to admire the crowd properly). Halfway through the first song on the setlist, he was joined by two dancers, Lamin Holmén and Adnan Sahuric in white tank tops and silver pants. Next up was ‘Yo Dije OUFF’, a fun, Spanish single of Rudberg’s which was mashed up at the end with Cardi B’s ‘I Like It’ playing over the speakers, leaving room for the singer and his dancers to show off some moves.
The dancers left the stage before the third song of the night, ‘Girlfriend’, before which Rudberg also took off his jacket to reveal a tank top underneath, made of the same glittery fabric. This pleased the crowd – throughout the show, there were quite a few requests for Rudberg to take off this top as well. After ‘Girlfriend’, Rudberg performed a medley of a few of his singles, including some in Spanish. He started with ‘Como Ayer’, followed by ‘La Mesa’ and ‘Pull Up’. For ‘Pull Up’, Rudberg and his dancers performed an extended version, hyping up the crowd by playing the first chorus: “Pull up, let me rewind it, rewind it,” before stopping the music and repeating the entire thing, completed by the choreography. Rudberg ended the medley with ‘QUE PASA’; the dancers stayed with him until the song’s flawless dance break before leaving the stage.
Then, it was time to slow the set down a little. Rudberg mentioned how glad he was to be here again after playing in the Oude Zaal and asked everyone to sing along to the next song if they knew the lyrics. This song was ‘Simon’s Song’, written for Young Royals – and everyone did sing along, even though it was entirely in Swedish. Rudberg continued with ‘Wrong’ and ‘Red Light’, during which the entire stage was lit up in red. He motioned for the crowd to sing along during the last chorus and it must be noted how happy and appreciative Rudberg looked throughout this moment, and the rest of the show. He smiled and waved to his fans the entire time, giving as many individuals attention as possible. “Amsterdam got a lot of cute faces,” Rudberg said after the song, before moving on to a speech about the importance of the next one. For many fans, this might have felt like a little therapy session, as many probably related to Rudberg’s message of celebrating who you are and always being yourself. ‘I’m Not a Boy’ is about exactly this and the fans held up tiny alien faces, referring to the lyrics “I’m not a boy, I’m not a girl, I am an alien out of this world”. It made for an adorable moment.
“Has anybody ever been in a relationship where [the other person] does not care about you?” Rudberg asked the crowd as an introduction to his next track, ‘Lose Me’. “YES!” it sounded from multiple corners of the full venue before the first notes could be heard. At some point, a fan threw a sparkly cowboy hat on stage with ‘OMR’ on it in rhinestones, which he put on – and he gave everyone one hell of a show with it. This steaminess continued well into the next tracks, which were ‘Talk’ – during which the dancers made another appearance – and a cover of Rihanna’s ‘Rude Boy’, of which previous performances have gone quite viral on social media. “Who is this diva?” many asked – well, it is Omar Rudberg!
The final three songs before the encore were ‘In the Sunrise’, ‘Moving Like That’ – with Rudberg participating in Melodifestivalen – and ‘It Takes a Fool to Remain Same’. Throughout these tracks, the dancer joined Rudberg occasionally but also gave him space to shine on his own. The dancers added a lot to every single performance, really elevating the tracks.
The night’s encore was quite a long one, with five tracks being sung. Rudberg started with a slow one, ‘She Fell in Love in the Summer’, which was beautifully moving, especially with the audience holding up their flashlights to create an intimate atmosphere. Rudberg then continued with the Swedish track ‘Dum’, followed by ‘Happier’ where the dancers joined him one final time. They stayed during the banger ‘Mi Casa Su Casa’, but left again so Rudberg could be on stage on his own for the final track, which was ‘Sabotage’. As soon as he was done, he was joined at the front of the stage by both his dancers as well as his musicians to thank the audience for this amazing night.
