RoxetteBlog

Per Gessle interview in Dagens industri

July 6, 2023 by Patrícia Peres

Dagens industri magazine met Per Gessle at Hotel Tylösand and while Lars Jansson was taking some fabulous photos of Per, Göran Jonsson interviewed him about his career, successes, collections (vinyl, guitars and cars), as well as business.

Göran thinks that selling a few hundred thousand concert tickets for another Gyllene Tider reunion tour is a measure of success. Displaying your collection of Ferrari cars at your own Hotel Tylösand is another. The real success is based on the hit songs written by Per Gessle, a song catalogue that is not for sale.

Göran starts the article with some information about and description of Hotel Tylösand. Per bought it together with former TV4 manager Björn Nordstrand in 1995. Göran saw Marie’s portrait photo next to the reception. It was taken by photographer Mattias Edwall and it’s part of the Per & Åsa Gessle Collection.

Per invites Göran into The Look suite at the hotel. There they start talking. Per points out that the cover photo for his first solo album 40 years ago was taken at Tylösand beach, which they can see from the panoramic window of the suite. PG explains that his first two solo records were considered a flop and he didn’t get a new record contract. Gyllene Tider had ended by then and he felt a little lost. It took 18 years before he again released an album under his own name with Swedish lyrics, Mazarin (2003).

Per says:

I got a lot of requests to write songs for other artists, especially lyrics, including „Kärleken är evig” for Lena Philipsson. From that I learned that it suits me very badly. I have a hard time adapting when someone says ‘change that line’. Then I realized that it wasn’t my thing to write songs on order for others.

I was able to develop as a songwriter thanks to having Marie. Songs like „Listen To Your Heart” and „Queen Of Rain”, they were all written for her. When I think back, it feels like „Look Sharp!”, the „Joyride” era and „Tourism”… There are some songs on „Tourism”, „Queen Of Rain” for example, that I still think are very good. In this way, I was a bit of a ‘late bloomer’ compared to many others, who peak when they are around 25 years old. When Roxette broke through, I turned 30 and Marie was 31. And since then it’s been rolling.

Göran is curious if it is slower to write songs now and if it is harder to find inspiration.

No, not really. I have just finished a brand new Swedish solo record that will be released next year.

Göran is surprised, because he knows that a new Gyllene Tider album has just been released. Mr. G explains it was recorded last summer. When they reunite, he has to write a new record so they can hang out a bit, because they never meet otherwise. Then they get to hang out a bit, feel each other’s pulse, play together and be creative. It’s the best there is, he says to Dagens industri. It’s wonderful when they meet.

Göran wants to know if Per knows how many records he has sold during his career. He has no idea. He knows that Roxette has sold appr. 80 million albums, but there are a lot of streamings. He has no clue about how many albums GT sold, but he remembers that Mazarin sold 400,000-450,000 albums.

How much money he has earned, PG doesn’t know. His greatest asset is his extensive song catalogue. He has 862 works registered with the copyright organization Stim. For a long time, a single song was teasingly missing for the catalogue to be complete. Per wrote the music and Ingela “Pling” Forsman wrote the text for Skepp utan roder, which was submitted as a contribution to Melodifestivalen in 1986, but was not accepted. It was the only one Per Gessle wrote that he did not own the rights to. Later, Per became friends with a manager at Universal Music, which owned Skepp utan roder. PEr told him his story, that there was a single song that he didn’t own the rights to. Then all of a sudden one day, when Per celebrated his birthday, Universal’s Swedish manager came and rang the doorbell with a vinyl single that they had pressed with this particular song. Then PG got the rights back.

The real gems are of course all the hit songs he wrote for Roxette and for which there is an international market. Many great artists sold rights to their music for billions in recent years, e.g. Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, Tina Turner, Paul Simon, Sting. Per Gessle’s songs are owned by his own music publisher Jimmy Fun, which in recent years has had a steady turnover of between SEK 16 and 19 million and has reported a profit after net financials of SEK 12-13 million annually. Per has no plans to “cash in” and sell his song catalogue.

I can understand that you do it if you are Springsteen, he is 73 years old, and Dylan who is over 80. I’m a little too young for that. It’s like selling your babies and I’m not ready for that. I’m not quite done yet. But there are a lot of people who want to buy the rights. There are props almost every week, or at least every other week, from different places. But I don’t want that now. Maybe one day.

Göran from Dagens industri says that those who invest in song catalogues speculate on the longevity of the songs, that they will get back what they invested and more through ongoing copyright payments. The question is how long the lifespan of Per Gessle’s songs is.

I don’t have a crystal ball, but the big hit songs will certainly work for a few more generations.

PG says that music is made in a different way these days. You hear a lot of old music in commercials, in HBO films, Netflix series and so on, because no such music is written anymore.

I understand that rights are worth their weight in gold, because suddenly a song appears in a TV series and then it rattles.

Göran writes about Pretty Woman and It Must Have Been Love, the song from 1987 that got a second life and became number one in the US in 1990.

Göran Jonsson shares some financial details about Hotel Tylösand too. It turned out to be a successful investment, he thinks. The turnover increased in 2021 to SEK 199 million with a result after net financial items of SEK 46 million. Per owns 50 percent of the shares in the hotel through his company Elevator Entertainment, which last year received SEK 20 million in share dividends.

It has gone very well for the hotel. Björn and I were, at least during the first ten years, not particularly dependent on the hotel’s income, so we reinvested the profits.

To Göran’s question regarding how involved he is in management, Per replies that he sits on the board and in the past ten years he has taken up more space than in the beginning, when he was very much the ‘silent partner’.

Göran Jonsson says that the hotel walls are covered in art, mostly photographs. Some are for sale through the gallery Tres Hombres Art, of which Per Gessle is a co-owner, but many belong to the Per & Åsa Gessle Collection. Not even Per can tell exactly which works of art are the family’s and which are the gallery’s.

During the interview, the guys are sitting in front of the photo that is on the cover of David Bowie’s album Pin Ups (1973). Per has a few prints of it, even a huge one at home in Halmstad. David Bowie is undoubtedly one of his favourites. To Göran’s question regarding which was the best concert he had been to, Gessle replies it’s impossible to answer, but he remembers being completely enchanted by the Station to Station tour with David Bowie at Scandinavium in Gothenburg in 1976. It was absolutely magical to see him. Everyone in the audience came in platform shoes, but he himself suddenly looked like Frank Sinatra.

The Beatles are at least as strong and it was photos of John Lennon’s psychedelic painted Rolls-Royce that sparked Per’s interest in cars. It was the 1960s and in his room in Halmstad there were toy cars from Corgi Toys and a car track from Scalextrix.

Now Per has collected his cars in The Joyride Car Collection: twelve Ferraris, a McLaren and two Harley-Davidson motorcycles. Most are on display at Hotel Tylösand. The exhibition hall with glass walls in all directions is located on the ground floor of a newly built hotel part with 39 rooms and a conference room that was inaugurated in May.

It was my and my wife Åsa’s idea to build a garage there. It was actually only intended for six to seven cars, but there was room for eleven and now there are ten there, nine of which are Ferraris.

The idea is that I will rotate them. They must be serviced once a year and must therefore come in and out here. Then maybe I’ll take one home and put another one here.

Göran is curious what the car collection is worth. Per says he doesn’t know, Göran should google it. Göran has done that. It said SEK 100 million on some site. PG thinks it’s probably a very low estimation. There are some real gems here. The Ferrari LaFerrari Aperta is one that cannot be bought, there are none for sale. One was sold at some charity auction and it went for SEK 80 million. So such a car is worth maybe SEK 40-50 million.

Göran says that the exhibition catalogue has the info that together the cars on display are driven less than 100 miles per year. He wants to know if the collection is to be considered an investment in the first place. Per finds it difficult to call his interests investments. It doesn’t sound much fun.

I played at Ferrari’s 50th anniversary party in 1997 in Italy and got to know them and their representatives in Sweden. That was before it became a hysterical business of collector cars like this. It is only in the last 5-10 years that it has become so.

First he just liked the cars. But in 2001 he had the opportunity to buy a limited edition car, a 550 Barchetta Pininfarina, of which 448 were produced. It’s a car that Per has home. After that things got tougher.

The Joyride Car Collection

Ferrari 250 GTE 2+2 (1962)
Ferrari Dino 246 GT (1971)
Ferrari 550 Barchetta Pininfarina (2001)
Ferrari 430 Scuderia (2007)
Ferrari 599 GTO (2010)
Ferrari 458 Speciale Aperta (2015)
Ferrari F12 TDF (2016)
Ferrari LaFerrari Aperta (2017)
McLaren Senna (2018)
Ferrari 488 Pista Spider (2020)
Ferrari Monza SP2 (2020)
Ferrari Daytona SP3 (2023)
Ferrari 812 Competizione Aperta (2023)
Harley-Davidson XLH 1200 Sportster (1992)
Harley-Davidson Heritage Softail Nostalgia (1993)

Göran thinks Per must have made a good deal, since he started buying Ferraris before the real boom took off.

Yes, but you don’t make money until you sell.

Göran refers to the stock exchange. Per says shares are greedy and he thinks it’s super boring. He is totally uninterested in that kind of investment. But these cars are fun and really beautiful.

It’s the same with art and photography. I bought a lot of amazing photographs in the 1990s. It cost nothing then compared to now – Terry O’Neill, Ansel Adams, Irving Penn, Robert Mapplethorpe – just because I liked it. I have got to know many photographers. Anton Corbijn is a very good friend of ours in the family. I have worked with him since 1999. When Gabriel, our son, was little, Anton was at our house every year and took family photos of us. We have lots of photos from Gabriel’s upbringing. It’s really fun. I love his work and he is a damn nice guy.

Göran asks Per if he has a record collection.

Yes, of course I have a record collection. Otherwise you are naked. I’ve purged stuff that I got for free from record companies over the years and never listened to, but I still have the records that have followed me through life, about 2,000 LPs.

He also has a guitar collection of a little over 100 guitars. As rarities he has some old Martins, acoustic guitars from the 1930s and ’40s. And Rickenbackers. Per points out that the retro logo for The Joyride Car Collection is a Rickenbacker attached to a gas pump.

So-called memorabilia from his career adorns Leif’s Lounge, one of the restaurants at Hotel Tylösand. There hang, for example, six framed rejection letters, addressed to Hamiltons väg 8 in Halmstad before Per moved away from home. Among those who had a demo cassette with Gyllene Tider’s music sent to them, but who declined and returned it, were Björn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson at Polar Music. The rejection letter from Electra is signed by Ingela Forsman, with whom Per Gessle later came to write a song together, the one that was missing from his catalogue for a long time.

Göran writes that Per is a big music fan and has encyclopedic knowledge of rock and pop music. He has always loved the aesthetics of music. For him, it was important that Gyllene Tider’s records came out on EMI’s Parlophone label, the same one on which The Beatles’ music was released.

He misses album covers, pictures, magazines and everything else around music itself, which is anonymized when practically all music is streamed.

I’ve got used to it like everyone else, but I think it’s super boring. When I was growing up, there was an absolutely huge pop culture, which was teen-affirming. The role of pop music has completely changed since then, but our whole society has changed, so it’s not so strange.

Per thinks album covers make the music so much clearer. He looks up at David Bowie’s Pin Ups on the wall where they are sitting. That record is the album cover, after all. The Abbey Road record of The Beatles is the crossing point. Dark Side of the Moon, Sticky Fingers and all the others. Per thinks that without those covers and that song order, these albums would have meant something else. He thinks it’s hard to explain if you haven’t been there then.

When I sit and talk to my 25-year-old son about this, he just thinks I’m weird. He doesn’t understand anything. And he is absolutely right about that. And I can’t understand how music can mean so little. If you talk about today’s pop music, I don’t understand the purpose of it. It seems like everyone is trying to make the same songs that everyone else is making. Everything follows the same formula. Everyone works with the same plugins and the same type of sound. Everything sounds very good, but it also sounds very boring.

Göran says there are many indications that we are at the end of the era that began in the mid 1950s with the breakthrough of rock music. The golden age of that music style is definitely over. In an interview in the New York Times last fall, Jann S. Wenner, founder of the influential music magazine Rolling Stone, said this about rock and pop music: “I’m sorry to see it go, it’s not coming back, it’ll end up like jazz.”

Per thinks he is right.

There will soon be no more rock music. Being able to play and sing has lost its value a little because you can do everything with computers. That was knocked off when the EDM music thing happened. Rock music as we know it will only become a small niche. Once upon a time starting a band was fantastic!

The article on Dagnes industri is for subscriers only. It includes some fab photos of Per and a video reportage. The video can be watched without subscription HERE.

Per Gessle on Nordic Rox – July 2023

July 5, 2023 by Patrícia Peres

In the July episode of Nordic Rox, Per Gessle and Sven Lindström welcome listeners on the show from Per’s beautiful garden on the Swedish West Coast, waiting for the summer to kick in. Sven says it looks good after having a prolonged winter for 12 months or something. Per says it feels like that indeed.

Today’s featured artist is Amanda Jenssen. Per thinks she is amazing. She started out in 2007. She participated in this talent show called Idol and wound up in 2nd place. Sven thinks it’s quite symptomatic that she didn’t win. How good of an artist you really are, coming from a talent show? Sven asks Per about it. PG says you can’t really judge everyone, but he thinks it might be good not to win to have your own career and go from there. He guesses it’s a big and very good experience to be part of it. But still, it’s really hard to judge. The whole idea is sort of strange to begin with. But that’s another discussion, Per says. Sven says Amanda survived the eventual talent show trap and carved out a nice career for herself. Short though, it’s like she has taken a slight break in the last few years. The guys focus on the three albums she did from 2008 to 2012, and they picked 4 great songs. But before that, here comes an intro that Per might recognize, haha. Dangerous by Roxette from Sweden. Sven says the song was a US No.1 if he is not misinformed. Per says he is, because it was No.2. Sven says yeah, it was indeed. PG says they were like Amanda Jenssen, they were runner-up. But it was close, Sven says, haha.

The next song played is Kaleidoscope Dream by The Northern Belle, a wonderful band from Norway. Good Morning Midnight by Backyard Babies is next, then Sarah Klang’s new single, Mercedes is on. It’s a great song, Per thinks. It sounds really special. Sarah loves to drown in echo. To echo her voice and it creates this sort of hypnotic sound, which Per really likes a lot. She has a wonderful voice as well. The guys also play Electric by Melody Club. Both of them think it’s a good one. Hang With Me by the mighty Robyn is next from the album Body Talk Pt. 2.

The Amanda Jenssen Special begins here. The year after she was No.2 on Idol in 2007, she produced her first single and debut album, Killing My Darlings. And the first single was Do You Love Me? Per thinks it’s a great track. An instant hit for PG. There is something about her voice that Sven totally loves. He says it’s a bit… not hoarse, but… Per helps Sven out: „sexy”. Sven says it’s probably the word he was looking for. Per says he could see it on Sven’s face. Haha. Amanda wrote songs herself and she wrote in partnership with Pär Wiksten, who Per recognized from The Wannadies. This track is written by Vincent Pontare, who is an artist in his own right and the guys played him a lot of times before. He is a great writer as well and producer, PG says.

Coming up next is Dry My Soul, a track from Amanda’s third album, Hymns For The Haunted released in 2012. Sven loves this track. Per thinks it’s a good one. She’s got this very special voice and it just hits you as soon as you listen to it. Sven informs that she actually got pneumonia as a child on both lungs and that unfortunately left her with only 30% of lung capacity. Which is impossible to tell when you hear her sing. She sounds really powerful, PG thinks.

The guys slow things down a bit after this. They play a song by Amanda herself. Per thinks she is a great writer as well. She did this song called Illusionist, also from the Hymns For The Haunted album in 2012. It’s produced by Pär Wiksten. He was probably in another room when she recorded this, because there are no guitars in the beginning at least. They are a good team, Sven thinks. He loves The Wannadies, their attitude, pop-rock with great melodies. For Per, Illusionist is the stand-out track on that album.

In 2009, Amanda recorded her second album, Happyland and again partnered up with Pär Wiksten and they wrote the title track together. Pär produced most of the album. Happyland is a song the guys have been playing here on Nordic Rox quite a lot. Sven says there is a strange, wonderful atmosphere to this song. Per also thinks it’s very cool. Great production.

The Amanda Jenssen special is over. The guys go down to Malmö and play Gloria by Follin. Then comes The Sweetest Tune by Darling West. Ola & The Janglers is next with Not In My Life. A lovely sound from the ’60s. Per thinks this song was pretty influenced by The Zombies. Sven agrees. They must have listened to She’s Not There. PG thought about Time Of The Season. This song is from an album called Patterns, which Per had when he was a little kid. He still loves that album. It sounds really cool.

This wraps up the July episode of Nordic Rox. The guys thank everyone for listening, then Cigarettes by Anita Lindblom closes the show.

Still is from the Bag of Trix comment videos recorded by Anders Roos.

Thanks for your support, Sven!

Gyllene Tider longed to return to each other

July 4, 2023July 3, 2023 by Patrícia Peres

After the 40th anniversary celebration in 2019, Gyllene Tider thought it was over for the band. But the pandemic gave life a new meaning and Per Gessle felt a longing to play with his ’70s friends again.

He had managed to buy a new guitar and wrote two Gyllene Tider songs during the pandemic when he gathered his old band from the ’70s – Anders Herrlin, Göran Fritzon, Per Gessle, Mats “MP” Persson and Micke “Syd” Andersson. Would they make a new album?

Per Gessle to TT:

It was important that everyone was involved. Gyllene Tider is not a matter of life and death. If any of us doesn’t want to be involved then nothing will happen. But everyone was into it.

Per and Anders Herrlin are sitting in the sun outside Hotel Tylösand where the band is rehearsing for the summer tour. They talk about Hux Flux, which is the name of the new record, which is finished and ready to be released before the tour that starts in July.

Written for Gyllene Tider

The new album Hux Flux is written directly based on Gyllene Tider’s sound.

Per Gessle says:

This time we are releasing a record written for the five of us. We have dealt with two guitars, a keyboard and so on.

Anders Herrlin says:

We pinpoint ourselves in 1980.

Devoted audience

The band also has an old and devoted audience for more than 40 years that does not leave them in the lurch. Younger people have also joined the older audience along the way.

Per Gessle says:

But the large core of the audience are those who have followed us from the beginning. Who got married, divorced and lived parallel to us over the years. It’s a fantastically large audience.

Per promises not to disappoint the audience this summer:

Playing only the new songs is pointless. We have 18-20 old goodies that we rehearse. It’s clear that we invite people to a nostalgia party.

TT News Agency

Observations by Etoall – the exhibition opening at Hotel Tylösand

June 30, 2023 by Patrícia Peres

The vernissage of photographer Fredrik Etoall’s exhibition at Hotel Tylösand was held today. 44 of his amazing photos of Roxette, Marie Fredriksson, Per Gessle and Gyllene Tider are on display between 1st July and 31st August.

Tres Hombres Art organized a fab opening for the exhibition where Rosie Gottlander from THA asked him questions about how he got to work with Roxette and Fredrik talked about the sessions he had with Roxette, Marie, Per and GT. Rosie asked Fredrik to ask something from Per, so Per came up on stage and Fredrik asked him why he chose him to work together with. Mr. G talked very nicely about Fredrik and his art. The appreciation is mutual.

When we asked Fredrik about his photos and these sessions, he talked very enthusiastically about them. Especially about the session he did with Marie for the Nu! album and the one with Per for PG Roxette.

How he catches the inner essence of the artists he takes pictures of is really amazing. You as a fan already saw quite much of his work, but you have to get yourself his book, Observations by Etoall to see photos you have never seen before – from the Travelling session, from GT’s 2013 session or solo photos of Marie and Per in poses you never imagined your idols could strike. Wonderful job!

The books you could buy at Hotel Tylösand were signed. Both the limited editions in the box and the standard version as well. Fredrik kindly posed for pictures with the guests and appreciated all the nice words the visitors said to him. He deserves all the recognition. An awesome artist he is!

Per took his time and stayed for a while. He also talked to some guests, signed stuff the visitors asked him to sign and posed for pictures. Göran Fritzon was also there at the beginning, Anders Herrlin also appeared and Micke Syd attended the vernissage too. They all were very kind to the guests, having small talks, taking selfies and signing stuff.

If you are in Halmstad, make sure you visit the exhibition and don’t forget to buy the book. It’s really worth it!

All photos in the article by Patrícia Peres.

Gyllene Tider club gig at Leif’s Lounge

June 30, 2023 by Patrícia Peres

It’s been a while since the last time there was a pre-premiere gig at Leif’s Lounge in Hotel Tylösand. Actually, the last Gyllene Tider „secret gig” happened in 2013. So it was high time to do it again.

The number of tickets for this special show was very limited and sold out in no time. The queueing for some hardcore fans started early in the morning and when the hotel staff realized there were already some of them, they started playing a Roxette – Per Gessle – Marie Fredriksson – Gyllene Tider playlist via Leif’s Lounge’s speakers and also brought some coffee and sandwiches. Very kind of them!

The hours of waiting went by and at 19:00 the doors opened. After entering the venue we could see the mics, the instruments, all set for the guys and girls. The girls, yes, because Dea Norberg and Malin-My Wall, just like in 2019, joined LEIFSALLSTARSBAND. The technicians had prepared everything for a night to remember and Anders Roos had already set up his cameras on stage. Micke Syd got plexiglass in front of his drum set. Good for the sound, bad for the view, but in this small area it was probably really necessary.

It was quite warm inside Leif’s, at least in the front and it got even hotter until the gig started at 21:15. During the gig? Haha. We were melting on and off stage! It got extremely hot and sweaty. The guys used towels between the songs to get rid of the sweat.

Before the gang came up on stage, the audience started screaming and clapping several times. Once the boys and girls hit the stage, the crowd got even louder. Per brought a sheet of paper with him and put it next to his drinks. It probably contained the connecting texts between the songs.

The Fab Five started the set with Puls. Micke Syd had to set his drums ready for this and it took a couple of seconds, so Per asked the audience if we know Micke Syd. Haha. Then Micke asked everyone to count in with him, 1-2, 1-2-3-4 and they started playing Puls.

After the song Per greeted the crowd and said that the last time they had a gig here was 10 years ago and he had the feeling that it was exactly the same people in the audience. He asked „were you here then?”, the crowd shouted „yeees!”. Per replied „I thought so”. Haha. He said they launch a new album, Hux Flux tomorrow (Friday) and go on a tour next week. He added that they planned to play some old songs they rehearsed during the past weeks and also some new songs. The first new song they performed was Gyllene Tider igen and it rocked big time! It should be the opening song on tour. It’s a fab opening track on the album and would have been an obvious first single if it weren’t Chans.

PG said when they started the band they played a lot of covers, like Mott the Hoople, Pugh Rogefeldt and ABBA, for example, but there was an artist they always liked, Tom Petty. So they played Vill ha ett svar!

Then came a hit that can’t be missed on a GT setlist, Juni, juli, augusti. The crowd was singing along the whole song. It was a great feeling! Det hjärta som brinner also made the crowd sing along. After that Per mentioned that they wanted to play a tribute to their favourite Dutch band. He asked which band it could be. Maybe Focus? Anders said Golden Earring. PG said he has another suggestion, Ekseption. He saw them at Folketspark in Halmstad in 1973. Micke’s suggestion was George Baker Selection and he started singing „una paloma blanca”. Then Per said there is another band they all liked and it’s Shocking Blue. They had a big hit called Venus. PG asked MP to play a little Venus. MP started and Micke Syd joined in with the drums while Per started dancing to it. Then he suddenly said „thanks, thanks” to stop the guys. Mr. G said they got hooked on a song, Send Me a Postcard. So they played Skicka ett vykort, älskling.

Right after that came another new song, Gammal kärlek rostar aldrig. It sounded absolutely fab and we hope it stays on the tour setlist as well. After the song Per joked that even those couldn’t hear this one before, who use The Pirate Bay. Then someone shouted they should play Dina bruna ögons skull and Micke Syd shouted back „you wish”. Haha. Mr. G said that backstage they talked about what is everyone’s favourite GT song in the gang and they all agreed it’s Flickorna på TV2. It still sounds too cool! The audience started clapping very loudly and screamed „hey, hey, hey, hey”. Per said they are very kind.

PG went on talking and asked the crowd if we heard that there is a GT movie coming, a sci-fi. Haha. He said the actors are somewhere in the crowd. The audience was cheering. Then Per said they also had a movie in 1981, a little box office hit, Parkliv! Ljudet av ett annat hjärta was released as a single to that film. It’s a forever favourite. After PG played it on his acoustic tour in a totally stripped down arrangement, it was just fantastic to hear it live again from GT.

With almost no break between the two songs, came Leva livet next. Another huge hit!

For Tylö Sun, Micke Syd got rid of his glasses. He was so sweaty, his whole face too that the glasses probably just slipped off and it disturbed him. The song was another fan favourite.

The guys and girls left the stage after that, but didn’t keep us waiting so long until they got back while the audience screamed and was clapping. Per thanked the crowd for being so kind and Micke Syd came to the front (with his glasses back on) to say hi to the crowd. The audience cheered him. Then Per introduced the fanatastic people around him on stage. He started the brand presentation with Dea and Malin-My. Then came MP and Göran. When Per introduced Anders he said he has the honour to be standing next to Sweden’s most handsome guy 1982, who is still a titbit. Anders was laughing. Per introduced Micke behind the drums and Micke introduced Per as the one who parked at least 12 cars wrongly at the entrance of the hotel. Haha.

Arabiska nätter we can’t hear live very often. It was played at the 2013 club gig and the guys thought to surprise us wit it again.

Gå & fiska! was the next hit and the audience adored it too.

Before the last song, Per thought it would be great to show us who the actors are in the upcoming GT movie, so he called the five guys up on stage. What an amazing surprise! There came 5 young boys who looked very fitting for the roles. They stayed on stage for the closing song, Sommartider. They already looked like a tight gang. Haha, they had a blast on stage and even took selfies up there. Fredrik Etoall also attended the gig and came to the front to take photos of these moments when the 5 GT actors were introduced.

With this the gig ended. Per thanked the audience for coming and said goodbye with a „see you next week and have a nice weekend”.

I have to mention that after many years without new guitar picks, there is a new collection. 9 Per plectrums and 4 MP picks. PG gave several guitar picks to fans in the crowd from hand to hand during the show, but once in a while he also threw them a bit further.

Looking very much forward to the tour to see this energetic, powerful pop band on stage again!

Setlist