Infernal at Wonderfestiwall 2026

It began with a calm that was almost provocative. Not that festival calm where people stand around waiting for the fireworks, but a more controlled pulse, as if Infernal wanted to remind us that they can do more than shout “KALINKA” and let the rest spiral into chaos. They opened with the more restrained tracks, including Self Control, and only slowly let the machine pick up speed. It was smart. Almost cheeky. Because when your catalogue is loaded with earworms, it takes real craft not to go straight for the confetti cannon.

And then they let loose. Not in one of those “now the party starts” moments, where the crowd first has to be persuaded with raised hands and half-hearted singalongs. No, Infernal built the show like one long, relentless explosion. Dance, apple-picking, vodka bath and laser light — a visual and rhythmic circus with one foot in the theatrical and the other planted firmly on the dance floor. Maybe that’s exactly why they still work. While many acts from that era have chosen to scale down into a more DJ-like setup, Lina and Paw have insisted on making the live format feel genuinely alive. Not merely played back. Alive. There’s a difference, and it’s bigger than the industry often likes to admit when it stands there with its arms folded, calling everything “performed.”

I’ve seen Infernal many times, and what struck me was how much they’ve changed without losing their core. Paw now takes up far more space, and it suits them. He’s no longer just the discreet engine behind it all, but a clear part of the stage’s energy. Lina is still the crown jewel, yes, but without becoming decoration for decoration’s sake. She delivers the vocals with power and scale, and she does it with the kind of confidence that only comes from spending years in this machine room and knowing exactly how much air there is between elegance and chaos. Not much. Enough to make it interesting.

Perhaps the most striking thing about the concert wasn’t the big hits, but the way they were handled. There was almost no room for new material in the set, and that’s of course understandable. When you’re standing in front of a crowd at 00:45 on a Saturday night at Wonderfestiwall, it’s not the time to test anyone’s patience with a half-baked album track (right, The Cardigans?). But the old classics were given new life through remixes and edits, and that gave the set a freshness that kept it from becoming a plain greatest-hits parade with dust on its shoulders. It takes discipline to reinvent your own back catalogue without doing violence to it. Many try. Fewer succeed. Some end up sounding like their own cover version.

And then there was the audience, of course. The kind of concert where you can feel that people haven’t just come to hear a song, but to become part of something collective, something nostalgic and entirely necessary. My smartwatch counted 17,000 steps, and a not insignificant number of them must be credited to Infernal. That may say more about me than about them, but it also says something about the concert’s effect: nobody stood still unless their own body had briefly left them behind. And even then, there was enough bass to lure it back.

There’s a particular satisfaction in seeing a band that could have taken the easy route, but instead has held on to the ambition of being a live act with stature. Infernal could have leaned back long ago and let “Kalinka,” “Sunrise” and “From Paris To Berlin” do the work on their own. They could have run the whole thing on autopilot, like so many others from the same generation do, smiling professionally and hoping the audience won’t notice the difference. But they do. And you could here too. Infernal doesn’t just play its history; it stages it, tightens it up, gives it new angles and still lets it kick.

The only thing I leave with is a small, almost unreasonable wish: that we get some new Infernal music that can live inside this show, not just around it. Not because the old songs are worn out — I’ve heard them myself a trillion times, and it’s not the songs’ fault that my own nervous system now knows them better than my calendar does. But because a band like Infernal deserves to keep writing itself forward. Not as duty. As necessity. Or at least as a very well-dressed pleasure.

In truth, Wonderfestiwall 2026 may simply have been the place where Infernal reminded us that partying can be both intelligent and uncompromising. And that a good night is sometimes measured in steps, sweat, and the slightly absurd feeling that you’ve just seen something that refuses to grow old.