Movits! makes Lotus a party

Five girls passed around a vodka-filled Minute Maid orange juice bottle in the minutes before Movits!, a Swedish music group, took the stage at Lotus Music and Arts Festival on Saturday night.

“What is this again?” one girl asked.

Next to them, two guys stood with hands in pockets.

“I just don’t even know what’s coming,” one of them said.
A minute before the concert’s starting time, the crowd began to chant the band’s name.

Against the crowd, the two guys shouted, “Anders! Anders!”

The music started before the musicians appeared. From offstage, they were rapping Swedish lyrics into an invisible microphone. Then, they hit the stage.

In a blast of black tuxedos, unceasing feet movements and smooth vocals, Movits! began its second Lotus performance with an energy that continued for the next hour and a half.

It isn’t a normal hip-hop band.

At the front of the stage, vocalist Johan Jivin’ Rensfeldt waved a white sweat rag in the air.

White tube socks covered the bottoms of his black pants.

He reached toward the audience. The five girls screamed, waving their hands as Rensfeldt pulled away.

“We played here last night, and it was probably one of the loudest crowds I ever heard,” Rensfeldt said to the screaming audience. “Tonight might have topped it.”

Saxophonist Joakim “One-Take” Nilsson bounced, moving his feet in square patterns as his head bobbed with the instrument.

When a microphone was not in his reach, he lowered the saxophone and sang into his instrument’s mic, pausing with his hips pushed forward at the front of the stage.

After a few songs, Rensfeldt announced a love song.

“It’s called ‘Shoot Me in the Head,’” he said, pointing two fingers at his temple.

No fence separated the band from the audience, and a girl in a ribbon-waisted red dress climbed on stage.

“Kelly, go!” her friend said from the first row.

She held her dress as her feet landed near Rensfeldt.

He continued singing as he wagged a finger at her, and she jumped back into the crowd.

During the band’s final encore song, another crowd member made it on stage, standing next to Rensfeldt as he rapped the last verse.

Jumping into the crowd, the stage intruder surfed his way through the final notes.