After their sold-out O2 gig in London 2015, Roxette is back to perform in the city in 2016 as well. The show will be on 8th July and it’s part of the Greenwich Music time happening, a four day series of concerts, situated outdoor, in the magnificent surroundings of the Old Royal Naval College, over looking the Thames, lit by the big city lights of Canary Wharf.
Tickets go on sale 4th December at 9 am at Ticketmaster UK, but presale begins on Wednesday, 2nd December at 9 am local time! Good luck!
Yet another South African interview with Per Gessle has been made available online. Listen to it HERE. This one is done by East Coast Radio and it’s 6m 25s long. The content is very similar to the other SA radio interview, but there are some fun additions, like PG’s thoughts about Justin Bieber and the content of the family fridge.
To the question what’s happening in Sweden right now Per replied it’s pretty dark and people are preparing for the Christmas season and it’s raining on the Swedish West Coast.
The radio host mentions he knows Mr. G loves South Africa as he has been there a couple of times. Per says he has been there privately as well a few times with his family. They have friends just outside Cape Town. They enjoy the weather, the nice wines, the food and the people. He thinks it’s pleasant to be in South Africa and it’s great to perform there.
Still is from the making of video of The Look 2015 remake
To the question what the secret behind Roxette’s 30 years of success is Mr. G replied he doesn’t know. They were lucky when they had their breakthrough in the late 80’s and that kept going. He says in the end it’s people’s choice and the Roxette fans have always been very active and a big part of the shows, a big part of everything. It’s just great to be able to continue doing this.
When Per is asked which song he likes the most when they perform, he says The Look is pretty cool and it’s always fun to perform. But also the big ballads, because Marie is a fantastic singer. She made all those songs into monster songs. Per says it’s a blessing to be part of all this, having all these crowds loving what they do and they sing along, they know the lyrics to every song.
Regarding what he is doing backstage while he is waiting to perform and if there is a ritual, he says the band, Marie and he get together and talk through things what’s going to happen. Then he goes back to his dressing room to focus. He also talks about them being an organic band and that they play 100% live.
The host had a funny question. He asks Per what one can find in his fridge right now. Per replies he was away for a week and he doesn’t really know, but he says he can guess there is some classic Swedish stuff like Swedish meatballs, because his family loves Swedish meatballs.
The producer asked Per to be honest and tell if he likes Justin Bieber. Mr. G hesitated a bit then he replied he can’t really answer that, because he doesn’t really know him that much. But he really likes some of his productions whoever the producer is behind them. He does have a few JB songs on his playlist on Spotify.
The host asked Per if Gabriel listens to Roxette. Per says he tried to make him listen to Roxette, but he probably doesn’t have Roxette on his playlist. He knows Gabbe likes Real Sugar. He is really open-minded to everything though, being an 18-year-old. He is listening to Mr. Tambourine Man by Bob Dylan, he also listens to Justin Bieber, but also Motörhead.
As Per mentioned on Facebook, he was busy with some South African interviews yesterday. We are now glad to share one of them with you. Heinrich du Plooy from Bok Radio interviewed Mr. G on the occasion of Roxette’s comeback to South Africa next year. Huge thanks to Wynand van Heerden, you can listen to the complete, almost 20-minute-long interview by clicking .
The program starts with The Look and The Big L., then it’s fun to hear some lines from our RoxBlog article about the announcement of the South African leg of the XXX tour. At the beginning of the interview it turns out it’s still tough to pronounce Per’s surname. Haha. An evergreen issue.
Per was in Sweden, when he answered the questions, but he says it feels like being in London instead of the Swedish West Coast, because it’s just raining over there now.
Screenshot is from the making of video of The Look 2015 remake
To the question how it feels being back on stage and touring again Per replied it feels really cool and they are happy to be back in South Africa soon. He states they are on this tour since autumn 2014 and that being on their 30th anniversary tour means they are getting very old. He says it’s a blessing and he is proud of what they have achieved so far.
Heinrich asked Per how they decide on which songs to put on the setlist. Mr. G replied it’s an anniversary tour, so they basically play their greatest hits. There are some changes in the arrangements though, because of the shows being 100% live.
Regarding any funny situation that happened to Per or Marie on stage Per says the hardest thing when you’re touring so much is that you don’t really know where you are. It can be embarrassing if you say a different city versus where you play actually, so Micke N-S started taping the city where they play in front of Per’s mic stand, not to screw it up. He also talks about messing up the lyrics and that fans know the lyrics much better than they do.
Bok Radio asks if they are more relaxed now after 30 years of their career, if they are still nervous when they go on stage or if they have a different approach when they go to the studio. Per says he is not nervous, rather focused. Before every show he locks himself into the dressing room and goes through the setlist, thinks about what he should talk about on stage if something happened during the day.
Per talks about the fact that songwriting is the No 1 thing for him and it feels like he has just started. He is very curious and is interested in pop music as a whole. He wants to try things out, so he worked with different writers and producers, he worked with David Guetta and young Swedish writers and producers just to see how people work. He mentions that a month ago he started his own record label to work with young artists.
Per’s reply to the question if he still considers Marie and himself as the dream team:
Yeah! I think Marie is a wonderful person to work with. I think one of the reasons why I’ve been so successful with my songs, my material is that I’ve been able to pick people who make my songs even better than they are. If you know what I mean. It goes for the producers and also it definitely goes for Marie. You know the songs like Listen To Your Heart or It Must Have Been Love or Queen Of Rain, all those fantastic ballads that she’s been doing over the years. She just makes those songs more… you know, it’s the way she sings them. I’ve been really blessed working with talents like she. And also of course we’ve been very very good friends since we were in our teens almost. So it’s been a long ride together. She’s just a darling!
They also talk about The Look that it was written for Marie, but she didn’t feel comfortable with it, because she wants big melodies and it’s just two tones, which is rather Per’s range.
Shortly they talk about Marie’s illness and comeback. Per explains how strong Marie is and says the fans were really really wonderful and he thinks what kept Marie going was the love and affection from the fans.
Heinrich quotes some lines from different London reviews of the sold-out O2 show at the end of the interview and Per says it feels amazing to hear that. He talks about the fantastic band, the active crowds, the great catalogue of songs and that with all this they can never go wrong. It’s a blessing to be part of this.
As you already know, there will be an exclusive signing session with Marie Fredriksson and Helena von Zweigbergk at NK in Stockholm on 5th December. The session is 1-hour-long, it starts at 1 pm.
People with books purchased elsewhere will have to wait until the end of the session and Marie will possibly have time to accommodate these signings as well. However, there is no guarantee for this. Photos can be taken of Marie but not with Marie.
We are all very happy that Marie has agreed to do this session and we’ll want to make this as smooth and pleasant as possible for everybody.
Please respect the rules and be patient while queueing. Good luck, everyone! Enjoy meeting Marie & give much love to her!
If you don’t have the chance to travel to Stockholm and you couldn’t order a signed copy from Adlibris, Bokus is offering 100 copies of Marie’s biography, Kärleken till livet signed. They deliver abroad as well.
Out of the blue there came a post from Per on Roxette’s Facebook page tonight:
FRIDAY UPDATE: Greetings an hour before gig #63 on the XXX tour. We’ve found ourselves at the Tele2Arena in jolly Stockholm playing for the Tele2 company and their customers, guests and friends. Look forward to this, folks. The train keeps a-rollin’. Vids coming up! /P.
We’d been looking forward to something still this year, but this time it was hard to find out what Per meant with his comment in September:
Yep, could be the last Rox concert this year. Might pop up something else as well. Will let you know, folks! /P.
So now we know it was about another corporate gig. And by that, being a corporate show, it can’t get a number. Just like the Warsaw gig didn’t get a number, because that one was also a kind of a private gig. Once tickets are not on official sale and a concert is a closed event, it just can’t be part of a tour. Not of the XXX tour for sure. We already had a number discussion with Mr. G when we didn’t count the cancelled show in Mainz. Then we gave in (because of the T-shirts… 🙂 ), but now we won’t. We can’t. 😉 We go on counting again from the first gig in South Africa. #62 is going to be Johannesburg if there is no other official tour date before that show.
So the band performed at Tele2 Arena in Stockholm. Gyllene Tider played there in 2013 as the first musical act. Hopefully, the sound of the arena has improved during the past 2 years. Capacity of the venue is 30,000 for all-seater football events and 45,000 for concerts. Madonna did a show there some days ago for 40,557. We don’t have any confirmations on how many attended the Tele2 party.
One of the interesting things at this short Rox gig was that Dea is doing the Julgalan shows around Sweden and the premiere was exactly tonight. This way she couldn’t be on stage with Roxette, but there has to be a back-up vocalist and yes, Helena was happy to come back and join the gang for this bonanza.
It probably wasn’t worth bringing the XXX tour stage set to Tele2 for this short happening, so curtains were used as background design and the technicians played with the lights to make it look more interesting for the crowd.
Roxette went on stage after 11 pm and performed 7 songs.
Setlist
1. Sleeping In My Car
2. Dressed For Success
3. Dangerous
4. How Do You Do!
5. Joyride (intro: Gyllene Tider – Ljudet av ett annat hjärta)
6. Listen To Your Heart
7. The Look
