Judith

Review: “Roxette – Den osannolika resan tur och retur”

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Sven_L_Roxette_DORTOR_coverI just finished reading the last page of  “Roxette – Den osannolika resan tur och retur” and to put it in short: go and buy it and read it!

With this said, let’s go a bit more into details.

One could say the book is split into two parts; the first one is about Roxette. The author Sven Lindström goes through Roxette’s journey since they started with “Neverending Love” and played the last concert of the 2011-2012 tour in Mexico in September last year. You will find some interesting information about what happened in the USA, the ups and downs in the relationship between Per and Marie, Marie’s illness and recovery and the celebrated amazing comeback that we had the honour and blessing to witness the past years.

And Sven does a great job showing the world what Roxette is about! Even though there was nothing really new for me in the book besides a couple of details or things that I had forgotten, Sven puts the story down in a very nice way, in a way that made me feel proud and happy of having joined this joyride back in ’89. I laughed, I cried, I felt happy, I was surprised while reading the book. The book is clearly targeted to those who don’t follow Roxette on FB or read news on fan websites but are interested enough in the band and want to know some details about Per and Marie and how it all happened. But it’s also a nice documentation for Roxers and it will surely make you remember many things and bring back very nice (and not so nice) memories. And even though I know the story very well, I more than once felt I didn’t want to stop reading, and that, for me, is what makes a difference in a book.

The last 100 pages are dedicated to Roxette fans, or Roxers as we all call ourselves. Sven met many fans during his trips to South America, Russia and Europe to see Roxette and he decided to publish 5 stories of 6 die-hard fans, as he called them in the interview we did with him last week (stay tuned!), from different parts of the world: Argentina, Russian, Germany, Brazil and Poland/Sweden. This is the part of the book that has raised more eyebrows the past weeks since the table of contents of the book was published online. People have been wondering why so much about fans and why those fans. I was also wondering if I would find it interesting at all and I didn’t read it straight away like the first part. But then reading through the stories I realised that I’ve been there and done that a couple of times too and I am sure you will find yourself in the stories to a certain extent, too. We are all.. magic friends!

The only down-side is that there were moments where I would have liked to go on reading about the stories and get more the details. And that, compared to “Att vara Per Gessle”, there are very few pictures on this one. But one can’t have it all and this doesn’t change my final conclusion.

And it all begins where it ends… just get it if you can and if you speak Swedish, it’s simply worth it! Let’s hope it gets translated into more languages so that it can reach much more of you and public in general.

You can get the book on Bokus, they deliver to 35 countries besides Sweden.

[Update September 22:] Patrícia also wrote a review, you can read it on FB.

Gyllene Tider’s second single out of DATPR: Dags att tänka på refrängen and Singel

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datpr singelThe next single off “Dags att tänka på refrängen” will be “Dags att tänka på refrängen” and “Singel”, which will also be released as a double A-side vinyl single featuring these tracks:

Side A1:
Singel #2

Side A2:
Dags att tänka på refrängen (album version)
Dags att tänka på refrängen #2.

As Gyllene Tider wrote on Facebook, Singel #2 has three verses instead of 2. And on DATPR #2 the first verse is sung by Per and Micke Syd together.

Release date is September 18.

The cover of the single was shared today on FB by Thomas Evensson.

Contest: win a copy of “Roxette – Den osannolika resan tur och retur”!

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In cooperation with Norstedts, the publishing house of “Roxette – Den osannolika resan tur och retur”, we are giving away 2 copies of the book, which will be out next week.

In order to participate in the contest, simply answer this question:

Author Sven Lindström followed Roxette during their 2011-2012 tour to write his book – in which city did the Roxette tour end?

Write an email with your name, home address (so we can send the book) and the answer to the question to judith@roxetteblog.com until August 28st. The 2 lucky winners will be announced later that week.

Good luck!

Update August 31st: The winners are Elisa Boccara (France) and Oscar Mercado Chavez (Mexico). Congratulations!


And here is the small letter, contest terms and conditions
– In order to participate, you have to send an email to judith@roxetteblog.com with name, address and answer to the question. We will consider all emails we receive until the 28st of August 2013, 23:59 CET time.
– 2 winners will be picked up randomly among those who have participated and sent the correct answer.
– As it is usual, you can only participate once, any attempt to participate twice will lead to your disqualification.
– Prizes won’t be paid out in cash. Prizes will be sent by standard mail only once (so basically, if the envelope gets lost.. we won’t be able to send a replacement) by the publisher.
– Winners will be announced on this website and will also be notified per email. You’ll be required to answer to the email confirming your address.
– Roxetteblog.com will not enter into any correspondence regarding the result of the contest and is not liable for any damages, loss or expenses that may result in connection to the prize
– All submitted data will only be used for the purpose of the contest and, in case you are one of the lucky winners, to send you the prize.

Interview with Micke Syd: “It’s the way we deliver the songs and the communication with you that create this good vibe, I think it’s very unique.”

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We met Micke Syd in a café in Södermalm, one of the nicest districts of Stockholm, the Monday after the Stockholm concert. The weather wasn’t as nice as the previous days, but still allowed us to sit outside for “fika”, the Swedish word for “drinking coffee”. After a bit of chit-chat about our stay in Stockholm, travelling here and there to go to concerts and how Micke Syd is feeling today (“better today, yesterday I was totally KO!” he told us) we started with our interview.

Judith: So let’s start with some background. How did you get into music and when did you start playing drums?
Micke: I think I’ve always wanted to play drums. I remember when I was 5 or 6 and my parents had parties at home and played music and danced, I had a metallic ashtray and I played with knitting needles on it, just for myself, following the rhythm of the music. I don’t know why! (says with a smile). Then I got a drum kit for Christmas when I was 12 or 13, so I learnt to play myself. When I was in 9th grade I had some music lessons for some months but I learnt the rest myself. Then I started to play with Anders and a friend named Martin and the rest you know.

J: and did you have any favourite drummer or inspiration?Micke Syd 2
M: I think I had when I was younger; I always liked all those good drummers who had a personal sound when they play. A beat is a beat, but there must be that special something.
The thing is, you can be technically very good and fast but that doesn’t mean that it’s good.  So, of course, Ringo Starr or Charlie Watts were some of my inspirations. When you hear them play, just one beat, you know it’s them playing, it’s their personality coming through the drum sticks.

J: I think there are just a few drummers you can put in that category, I just got into Bruce Springsteen lately. I sometimes like to concentrate on an instrument when listening to an album, mostly it’s the drums or guitar. So I am amazed the way Max Weinberg plays.
M: Max Weinberg is fantastic. The feeling you get from him is very strong and precise. Love it.

J: It reminds me in a way you play, very much defined strong beats, very fast and catchy as well. And that’s one of the things I love about Gyllene Tider. You hear the difference if you are not playing the drums. You have a very much defined strong beat and you totally miss it when somebody else plays GT songs.
M: Thank you! I think this is the biggest thing with us in Gyllene, we have a totally own sound. All the 5 of us need to be there for this special thing to happen. And the fact that you hear when it’s me playing is the key. It comes with age, I know that I am never gonna be playing faster than *beep*, but I know that I can play ME.  Like MP plays himself, or Anders and Göran and Per. And that is the formula that makes us so special. It’s important to know who I am when I play. And what happens with me and the others in the band. And this is the kind of drummers I like and what I like to hear in other bands too. I am rather old now so I don’t listen to songs that way anymore, but sometimes you just have to. Like for instance, Paul McCartney’s drummer – have you seen him live?

J: Yes, just a month ago!
M: that is great to hear. Did you notice the drummer? Abe Laboriel Jr. His father is a legendary bass player; you can check him on Youtube. Abe Jr. is a huge guy, he also sings and has a very soulful voice and he plays fantastic drums. We could do the same beat on the same drums and it would sound totally different. Just because of the way we do this. And that’s all about music. Find who you are and play the best you can.

J: How did you create the drum parts for the new songs? I understood that Per sent you the demos, which are basically guitar and some keyboard, and that’s all. Was it on the fly in the studio or did you prepare yourself?
M: that’s one thing that was so magical about “Dags att tänka på refrängen” and the difference to when we did “Finn fem fel”. Per had written like he always does, on guitar and him singing, maybe some rhythm pattern or keyboard. He sent the songs bit by bit in spring I think, and I decided for myself to just listen to the songs once this. Sometimes when you listen to them more often, you listen to the chords, you may think ‘I have heard it before’, and you get a wrong input or idea about the song. Then you also start to think how you will play things. So I just listened to them once and left them. I think that one of the best things with us is that when we are together things just happen, we just do it. Of course, I have my box of fills and my beats and rhythm, you will probably hear the same or similar on more than one song. But it’s my way of doing it. So this time we just played.

J: And it worked out amazingly, because the album is great and you really seemed to have fun, some songs sound even like having been recorded live.
M: I think one of the good things was that we started out with “Det blir aldrig som man tänkt sej” because it’s a very powerful song and because we had already played it 32 years ago, but we still remembered it. Now when we rehearsed we even did songs from the EP “M”, like “M” which we never played back then, so we just said ‘let’s see if we can play it’ and we could. So songs are somewhere here in the brain, and when we get together it all comes back.

J: So what happened after “Det blir aldrig…”
M: We recorded this song in two or three takes and that was the beginning of the creative thing going. The first day we did a lot of takes, everything went so fast we didn’t even have time to think and I think that was the good thing, we simply played.

And many times what we played then became the arrangements, so you could say that we did the arrangements for the songs in real-time. And when you do that, often the stuff that comes out is amazing and the way it should be.

And for me this is very important too, I have to keep the tempo, I have to know what is happening to put the beats and the fills so it melts with the rest, so I like when it’s flowing, it shouldn’t stop, it should be like a dance. The parts between the verse and the chorus should be together with some nice … something. So when we do it like this, that fast, it just happens, this is nothing you can talk about. And it’s so special to be in a band where we have such a communication that is not verbal, it’s totally something else.

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#gtsommar – Fans meet Gyllene Tider!

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As you may have seen on our website, we organized two contests to get the chance to win a meet & greet with Gyllene Tider in Halmstad or in Stockholm. Appart from that, many newspapers have organized meet & greet contests and some fans organized these meetings on their own.

The meet & greets are always a nice chance to meet the whole band, get something signed, chat a bit with them and then get a group picture of all the winners and then have a big smile on your face for some hours, days and weeks and I think it’s worth writing about it and spread this good vibe around.

So here are some of the stories!

Halmstad was the first concert of the tour so everything seemed to be very “new”. I gathered all the 6 winners plus two fans from Peru, found Thomas Evensson, who would be taking pictures at the meet&greet like he has done in some occasions in the past and we headed to the meeting point where Cecilia from Live Nation met us to go backstage.

We had to wait a bit longer than planned, so we got to know each other a bit better. And we realized that we were a very international group: Australia, US, Poland, Germany, Argentina, Denmark, Peru and Spain/Austria.

John from USA explained how he got to know about the contest and that he had won.

“In the spring, the idea of taking a summer trip to London came up. My husband and I made our plans and when we set the dates I got a crazy idea! Let’s go see Gyllene Tider! We can catch the opening show! I actually convinced my better half to do this, we would fly to Copenhagen the morning of the show, get a car, drive to Halmstad, rock out, drive back to Copenhagen and fly back to London continuing our trip.

When we were in London I saw on RoxetteBlog page on Facebook a contest to attend a meet and greet before the show! Just answer a simple question and see if you are chosen. I sent off my email from my iphone. Then later on I check my email and saw Judith had emailed me… I get to go to the m&g!

Well YEAH! How cool is this? I was stoked to just see the show, now I get to meet the band?!?”

Cecilia from Argentina told us how she got the news that she had won. “It was on the 3rd of July in the morning. I checked Facebook and I saw a message from a friend saying ‘Say hi to the Beatles’. I was half asleep and took a while to realize that I had won. I checked my emails and saw that it was true. I jumped, screamed and could only say “I won! I won!” to the friend I am travelling with.”

Everybody was very excited as it was the first time to meet the 5 guys for some of us. Including myself.

Finally it was the time to go in. The m&g took place in the same building we met Roxette back in 2010. The location was a bit dark to take good pictures, so we moved outside. After some minutes the 5 guys showed up and greeted us with a smile.

The first to approach us was Micke Syd, who took some time to talk with all of us. He seemed to be very excited about the tour premiere. Göran explained that he was feeling a bit sick, but ready to rock. Per was in a happy mood, joking with some of us.

“I had the DATPR LP with me, I wanted to have it signed inside. When Per came to me I was holding the LP in my hands, he looked at the LP, then he looked at me, then again at the LP, ‘Your shirt has the same colour than the LP. It fits very well, you are melting with the LP’, he said. He was probably waiting for a reaction from my side, but I couldn’t bring out any intelligent answer to his comment. Celestte tried to help me out with a comment, but I don’t remember anymore what she said. I think then I just said something like ‘I can hide behind the LP if you want’ and we all laughed,” tells Nicole from Germany. “It was a great experience, thank you for making this possible!”

And that was it. We were guided back to the concert area, everybody wearing a big smile.

“Per Gessle just gave me a high 5!” tells John. “And the show was terrific”.

“The whole band was in great mood, it was a great experience, thank you!” says Cecilia from Argentina.

The m&g in Stockholm was … different. It started off with the fact that the security staff would not let anybody with a seat ticket into the standing area, where we were to meet Cecilia from Live Nation. After some talking and showing some of the emails I had exchanged with the management they finally let me in. There I met the 4 winners of the contest, Tomasz from RXB and two fans from Argentina I was asked to collect for the m&g. Thomas also joined us, he would be taking pictures this time around too.

This time there were two more groups waiting to meet Gyllene Tider: the winners of the Aftonbladet contest and some sponsors.

We had to wait a little bit this time as well, but we all have stories to tell so we spent the time sharing our concert experiences. We were again a very international group: Poland, US, Switzerland, Sweden, Spain/Austria and Argentina.

The new Tele2 Arena is rather big, so we had to walk through cables and a big backstage area to get to the room where we would meet the band. Once there we were split in groups and given the instructions: we would stand in a line as usual, get our items signed and then we would take a group photo. This time we also got a Gyllene Tider postcard from EMI in case we wanted to have that one signed.

Everybody seemed to be interested in the m&g because when the guys showed up, I could count at least 3 people (from EMI and Åsa) filming the event with their smartphones. Cecilia from Live Nation explained that we were the group of winners of the RoxetteBlog contest, and Per smiled and said “Great website!” and went on talking to each of the fans. Micke Syd was the last one to join, he knows Thomas Evensson and he always jokes with him “YOU again?” he said to him when he saw him taking pictures, “don’t they have any other photographer?” – well, it’s my fault to keep asking Thomas if he can take the pictures of the M&G if I know he is around. He is doing a great job with that as you can see!

I was asked to take the group to a side right after the picture, so I was not standing in the line this time, but watching from aside. It all went so quick that I don’t even know how I ended up in the picture, I think Bo just said I should be on the picture too and put me where you see me ?

After that we moved to one side and waited until we were showed our way back to the venue.
“it was great to meet them, I never thought I would meet the 5 of them like this, thank you!” said Christine from Switzerland.

Jorge and Sebastian from Argentina met the band in Örebro.

Two fans from Argentina, the four Spanish funny fans (Mariana, Alex, Estanislao and Rosa) responsible for cheering up the band and the front rows with their crazy wigs and Sandra from Germany who is going to all their concerts met GT in Gävle.

“The meet & greet in Gävle came totally unexpected for me. When I got the message from Judith I was very surprised…” tells Sandra, “the M&G went smooth, I used the opportunity to thank Micke for his help in Jönköping when he tried to fix a problem with the car of a friend. It was very nice and different from what I expected.”

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Sandra also got the chance to get her car signed by all the guys in Skövde. MP, Anders and Göran finally signed the car after the concert thanks to the help of BoJo and Johan from Show Security Sweden. “Awesome sommar, awesome memories. Tack alla!” says Sandra.