First of all: huge respect to Wonderfestiwall for booking internationally at this level. Anastasia on the bill is both big and nostalgic — she could just as easily have been the headliner on Tivoli’s Fredagsrock lineup. She was present, energetic and the exact opposite of an overblown show. With eight musicians on stage, nothing was spared.
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Disclaimer: Apropos Magazine received access or a review copy. As always, we share our own impressions — unfiltered.
Six stars
There’s something fascinating about bookings like this. The international pop star who may no longer fill the biggest arenas, but still has enough of a back catalogue to get an entire crowd singing along. It’s a booking that brings both prestige and reassurance: we know the songs, we know the voice, we know the story. It’s safe, but it’s also fun — and that’s exactly the kind of move that makes Wonderfestiwall more than just another Danish festival with Tessa, Magtens Koridorer and Blæst on the bill.
Anastasia is a singer you can hardly talk about without mentioning the word “hits”. Not because she has an endless string of them, but because the few she does have define an entire era. Not That Kind of Girl, Paid My Dues, Left Outside Alone — titles that are practically hardwired into the memory of those of us who had MTV running in the background in the early 2000s. When they’re played live, it almost feels like stepping into a kind of karaoke community, where we all know the lyrics, but forget the verses we never quite understood.
There were gaps in the catalogue, though. Even a singer of Anastasia’s calibre needs to fill the space when the set stretches beyond Spotify’s five most-streamed tracks. Here, we were treated to a bit of extra talk and interaction — nicknames for band members, small comments that felt slightly out of place, and a few improvised bits that probably worked better on paper than in practice.
And then there were the cover songs. A ’90s medley with Backstreet Boys, a detour through Sweet Child O’ Mine — classics that can stir up equal parts delight and scepticism. Sweet Child O’ Mine, in particular, worked surprisingly well. You may still remember the notorious Anastasia/Céline Dion fiasco, where a cover landed completely off target, but this time she pulled it off. Not because she outdid Guns N’ Roses (nobody does that, after all), but because she did it with ease, respect and without falling into the cringe trap. It was one of those moments when you could feel she still has it.
The sound, on the other hand, was a pleasure. While several other concerts at the festival struggled to balance decibels and clarity, Anastasia came through sharply. Her vocals were allowed to carry without being swallowed by the band, and there was no mistaking the energy on stage. There was both presence and commitment, and it never felt like a mechanical show. She gave it everything — and that deserves credit.
Still, it never quite became our concert. And maybe that isn’t really her fault. What do you do when nostalgia alone isn’t enough to move something in the present? When the big moments feel more like reunions than new experiences? We got the songs, we got the show, we got the energy — but we never quite got that feeling of being swept away.
And maybe that’s also the festival’s challenge: presenting a name that is big enough to create hype, but not necessarily relevant enough to truly move us. Anastasia fit perfectly into the story of Wonderfestiwall as a festival, but for us it was a concert you leave happily without feeling you’ve experienced something that changes you.
Reflection:
Concerts like this make you think about what we actually look for in music. Is it the feeling of recognising ourselves in old hits? Or is it the need to be taken somewhere we haven’t been before? Anastasia gave us comfort, nostalgia and professionalism. And she did it well. But she didn’t take us anywhere new.
We could sing along, we could laugh at the small quirks, we could enjoy the sound — but we couldn’t quite love it. As her own music suggests: I’m Outta Love. That’s a little how it felt in the end.
