Published 2026-06-24 00.45
CONCERT Just one year after his last concert on Swedish soil, Pitbull is back. The feeling is that the 45-year-old from Florida wants to forge while the flint wigs are still selling like hotcakes.
However, his escapist party pop only works in patches.
Pit bull
Place: 3Arena, Stockholm. Audience: About 36,000. Length: An hour and a half. Best: “Feel this moment”, and that Rihanna is played in the speakers before the concert. Worst: The flawed aesthetics of music.
It’s special to stand like a packed herring on the subway together with 200 sweaty costume elves in flint wigs.
The global trend of dressing up as “Mr Worldwide” has become bigger than the artist’s music (edm-pop overloaded with Latin rhythms and porky synths).
As a hit machine must Pit bull have the glory days of the 00s and early 10s behind him, but when the pandemic was over and live music was released again, he suddenly became a walking internet meme with a permanent mask in his ass. Now the stage artist Pitbull seems to want to maximize attendance before his audience gets tired of sweating with nylon stockings on their heads on hot summer evenings.
Just one year later the concert at Avicii Arena is the Florida-born artist back with his “I’m back tour” at the number bigger 3Arena.
Last was Shaggy dressing – this time acting Lil Jon heating. The 55-year-old Atlanta rapper has produced several of Pitbull’s early hits. When he in cut-off jean shorts and a t-shirt yawns about “shots” in LMFAO– the collaboration with the same name, it will be a warning of what is to come.
The main character ten years younger makes his entrance by sounding Guns N’ Roses “Welcome to the jungle” and Beastie Boys “Fight for your right” flow into its own “Don’t stop the party”.
– For all the baldies out there, he roars, hits his head, and reminds of a party rapper’s George Costanza.
Armando Christian Perezas he is actually called, then takes us through his collaborations that range from Bon Jovi and Enrique Iglesias. The band pulls party trick after party trick out of the hat: “Sweet child o’ mine”, “The final countdown”, “Seven nation army”.
The total euphoria that fills the arena is just as palpable as last time – although not as intimate and electric as the slightly smaller Globen.
Aesthetically speaking, however, Pitbull’s music is as big a disaster as his goatee, tight leather jacket and unfortunate rolling of hips among scantily clad dancers.
The extra cracking motivational speaker also comes with sporadic messages. It’s the same talk about “getting rid of all the negative shit” and “music as a universal language” as last time. The artist, who has a Cuban background, also holds a small lesson in Spanish where the key words are “Tequila” and “salud”.
Among the most cautious highlights are Usher-the collaboration “Dj got us fallin’ in love”, Kesha– the caramel “Timber” and Ne-Yo-the hit “Time of our lives”.
Genuinely touching is the insane party that takes place in the arena during the rather lovely Christina Aguilera-the chorus “Feel this moment”. Something similar happens when the lights of the phones illuminate young faces in the überescapist “Give me everything”. The great oblivion that the audience together strives towards can neither be closed to nor defended against.
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