Gyllene Tider’s GT40 Live Ullevi 2019 show is out!

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8 months after Gyllene Tider’s farewell tour is over, the Golden Guys surprised us with a live show release. The concert film is the complete Ullevi show, recorded on 3rd August 2019 in Gothenburg. The concert was originally planned to be held at Slottskogsvallen, but right after the tickets went on sale it turned out to be too small, so it had to be moved to Ullevi, of course. The number of visitors at the show was 54340! Pure awesomeness! And the chance to relive the best gig on the GT40 tour is just amazing!

Since I usually stand in the very front of the crowd, I love watching the DVD recordings later, because then I can see how the stage and the crowd looked from the back and how the band saw the audience and the venue itself. The camera angles used for the GT40 shooting are fabulous. You can see so many details and you can feel yourself standing and dancing and singing along right in the middle of the crowd, in front of those 5 guys and 2 ladies in top shape, giving their 120% of energy up on stage.

I want last summer back! Watching this concert on my 24th day of quarantine I’m just grateful for it and I appreciate it even more (if possible at all) how this band could unite so many people via their music. Hopefully, the good times are back again soon and ojojoj… still can’t believe it was Gyllene Tider’s last tour. Was it? I didn’t want this Ullevi gig to end… But the good thing is that from now on I can watch it anytime!

Streaming is available . If you want to rent the film, you get a 48-hour streaming period for 4,99 USD. You will be able to stream it on supported browsers or the Vimeo mobile app and watch it on TV, mobile and tablet. While if you buy it for 9,99 USD, you can stream it anytime, download it and watch it on TV, mobile and tablet.

If streaming is not your thing and you haven’t ordered your physical copy yet, you can buy the DVD or Blu-ray at or .

Setlist

1. Skicka ett vykort, älskling
2. Juni, juli, augusti
3. Det hjärta som brinner
4. (Hon vill ha) Puls
5. Flickorna på TV2
6. Vandrar i ett sommarregn
7. (Dansar inte lika bra som) Sjömän
8. Det kändes inte som maj
9. Flickan i en Cole Porter-sång
10. Tuffa tider

BAND PRESENTATION

11. Låt denna trumslagarpojke sjunga!
12. Kung av sand
13. En sten vid en sjö i en skog
14. Ljudet av ett annat hjärta
15. Ska vi älska, så ska vi älska till Buddy Holly
16. (Kom så ska vi) Leva livet
17. Tylö Sun

Encore 1

18. Billy
19. Det är över nu
20. Gå & fiska!

Encore 2

21. När vi två blir en
22. Sommartider
23. När alla vännerna gått hem

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Stills are from the concert recording.

 

APRIL FOOLS’ DAY! – Per Gessle to release a metal EP

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APRIL FOOLS’ DAY – As Per informed yesterday on his Instagram, he has been in the studio since days, working together with metal producer S. Karlsson. Mr. G(oth) is entering a new genre! It turned out the guys are working on a metal EP that will include 4 songs and will be released digitally on 1st May. 2 weeks later, on 15th May there will be a bonus single released on vinyl. The bonus single won’t be available on streaming platforms. Once the pre-order links to the very limited edition single (200 copies!) are available, we will let you know.

EP tracklist

  1. Goth Look    3:57
  2. Listen To Your Thrash    5:28
  3. It Must Have Been Black    4:18
  4. Hell Ride    4:23

Vinyl bonus single

A. Growling In My Car    3:46
B. Growling In My Car – T&A Demo – 21 September, 2019    3:12

Photos are from Per’s Instagram (1, 2)

A cover of Roxette’s ”Listen To Your Heart” on the US charts

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Mainstream Rock is Billboard magazine’s music chart that ranks the most played songs on mainstream rock radio stations in the US. Listen To Your Heart has now entered the charts at No. 40 in the interpretation of an American hard rock band, Through Fire. The band was founded in 2015 and released their 2nd album, All Animals – on which their Listen To Your Heart cover can be found – on 19th July 2019. It’s not the first time the band appears on the charts. Their debut single Stronger reached number 29 and 3 other songs were also charting. Their highest peak position was 13 with their 2016 single, Breathe. Listen To Your Heart was released as a single and an official video to it was published on 9th December 2019, before anyone knew what happened in the Roxette World that day. The single features an acoustic version too.

Listen To Your Heart was written by Per Gessle and Mats MP Persson on 3-4 May 1988 and was released as the second single from Roxette’s second studio album, Look Sharp! in September the same year. This is what Per told about it earlier:

I co-wrote this with MP Persson in May of 1988 and it immediately felt very special. The lyrics came from an all night conversation I’d had with a friend who was going through a heartbreaking divorce. In the studio with Roxette it sounded awesome, with Marie taking the lead role and Clarence creating that beautiful piano intro.

Our ambition was to make it sound really ”American”. I guess we succeeded…

It has become our most popular song all over the world and was our second No. 1 in the US.

Roxette reached their 2nd No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 with the song on 4th November 1989.

A Belgian dance group, DHT did a trance cover of LTYH and it became a hit in the US and in some other countries. This way in 2005 Listen To Your Heart returned to the top 10 on the Billboard (reaching No. 8) as DHT’s remake.

American radios played Listen To Your Heart more than 5 million times. In 1998 Roxette received an award from BMI for this song being played over 2 million times on American radio. Phil Graham of BMI said it was very unusual for a song to get over the 2 million mark in such a short space of time. In October 2006, helped by DHT’s cover, Roxette were awarded again by BMI for the song’s 3 millionth broadcast on American radio. Per and MP got the Million-Air Award for 4 million plays in 2008 and for 5 million plays in 2014.

Let’s see how high the cover of Through Fire climbs. And hey, looking forward to the 6 million plays ceremony anytime!

Update
28/03/2020 – No. 39
04/04/2020 – No. 35
11/04/2020 – No. 33
18/04/2020 – No. 36
25/04/2020 – No. 33
02/05/2020 – No. 35
09/05/2020 – No. 36
16/05/2020 – No. 36
23/05/2020 – No. 35
30/05/2020 – No. 32
06/06/2020 – No. 32
13/06/2020 – No. 33
20/06/2020 – No. 33
27/06/2020 – No. 34
04/07/2020 – No. 37

Memorial concerts for Marie Fredriksson in Östra Ljungby church

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Svenska kyrkan, Klippans pastorat organized 2 concerts in memory of Marie Fredriksson on 8th March in Östra Ljungby church. Marie was born in Össjö, but she grew up in Östra Ljungby and never forgot her roots. People in Östra Ljungby have always been very proud of her. There are several in the church’s choir who went to school together with Marie and they felt they had to do something. Before they began to organize the concerts, they asked Marie’s family if it was OK. When hd.se asked they remembered Marie as a down-to-earth person and that she was always singing. She saw a piano, sat there and started playing and singing.

The first concert was held from 17:00, the next from 18:30. Soloist Carolina Söderman felt honored to sing in Marie’s home ground and she shares that the first time she was singing at a wedding was when she was 17 in 1994 and the song she sang from Marie was Ännu doftar kärlek. Carolina says Marie had heart and emotion in everything she sang.

Tickets (250-250) for the events got sold out in less than 24 hours 1 month ago. One ticket cost 100 SEK and all proceeds will be donated to Cancerfonden (Cancer Foundation).

Songs that were performed:

  1. Ett hus vid havet
  2. Den bästa dagen
  3. Ännu doftar kärlek
  4. När kärleken föds
  5. Sång till Marie
  6. Listen To Your Heart
  7. Efter stormen
  8. Sparvöga
  9. Tid för tystnad
  10. Där du andas
  11. Tro

At the 2 concerts 50,000 SEK was collected from the ticket sales and this fully goes to Cancerfonden. You can also donate money to Cancerfonden via their website. THIS collection goes until 15th March and already 56,330 SEK is collected related to this Östra Ljungby event. You can also use this bank account number for donations: SE0650000000052101012251 or donate to the local cancer foundation in your country.

Videos from the event: 1; 2;

 

CONTEST – Win Marie Fredriksson’s biography in Hungarian!

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As we already informed you earlier, Marie Fredriksson’s biography has been published in Hungarian. Title of the book became Listen To My Heart – Hallgass a szívemre. A longtime Hungarian fan, Zoltán Dúl decided to translate the book from Swedish into Hungarian and fortunately, a publishing company, G-ADAM Könyv- és Lapkiadó Kft. (in cooperation with SzépKönyvek Kiadó) was interested in releasing it. Thank you, Zoltán, for the initiative and your work!

As you all probably know by now, I’m Hungarian too, so I was excited to see that the book would be available in my mother tongue. I’m a fan of reading books and watching movies in their original language and of course I read the biography in Swedish when it was published years back, but it’s a big thing that after several other countries, Hungary is the next one where this wonderful book is out. (I know, I know… still no English version. Sigh…) I was among the first ones pre-ordering it online to be picked up in the shop. The planned publishing date was 28th February and I planned to read it at the weekend, but due to a slight delay it arrived to the shops only on 4th March, so it became a birthday reading for me. What I liked to see when I went to get my copy at the shop was that among hundreds of different books waiting for being picked up by their new owners I could see several copies of Marie’s biography on the online order pick-up shelves, also waiting for their new owners. So lovely!

Reading the book for the first time in Swedish was amazing. Reading Marie’s story in her own words, her thoughts on her life and life in general, her childhood, her tragedies, the ups and downs, her illness, her fabulous family and her fantastic career was a rollercoaster of emotions. Heartbreaking and heartwarming parts are equally present in the book and Marie’s love for life and her always fighting, amazon personality shines through all her words. She won’t ever stop being an inspiration to so many people all around the world! Now reading it all again after 5 years and most importantly, after what happened on 9th December 2019, put some parts in the book in a different light. Impossible to read it without tears in the eyes.

As I can see there are only a few differences vs. the original Swedish book. There are much less pictures in the Hungarian version and there are photos that are not in the Swedish biography, but I think some pictures I saw in the books published in other languages. The leather jacket pics on the Swedish inside covers are skipped in the Hungarian version. The book is translated from Swedish, but the last chapter here is the same extra chapter that you could read in the German version. Otherwise there are no new texts. The only reference to 9th December is on the back cover of the book.

It’s very nice that the publisher decided to donate 1% after each sold copy of the book to Alapítvány a Daganatos Betegek Gyógyításáért és Rehabilitációjáért (Foundation for the Treatment and Rehabilitation of Cancer Patients).

THIS site is in Hungarian, but this is the official website for the book where one can also order it with a 20% discount.

C-O-N-T-E-S-T!

The publisher of the book was kind enough to offer 3 copies of the Hungarian book for a RoxBlog contest. It’s probably most interesting to Hungarian Roxers, but maybe collector fans would also be glad to have an exotic language book in their collection. So anyone is welcome to take part in the contest.

In order to participate, answer the following questions correctly:

  1. In which year was Marie’s biography published for the first time in its original language and what was the title of it? – 2015, Kärleken till livet
  2. In how many languages has the biography been published until now, including the actual Hungarian release? – 5 (Swedish, German, Czech, Spanish, Hungarian)
  3. How many times did Roxette play live in Hungary? – 3 (1992, 2011, 2015)

Send an e-mail with your name, address and the correct answers to the questions to rxbcontests@gmail.com until 23:59 CET, 15th March 2020. The 3 lucky winners will be announced shortly after. Sok szerencsét! (Good luck!)

Contest terms and conditions:
– In order to participate, you have to send an e-mail to rxbcontests@gmail.com with name, address and correct answers to the 3 questions. We will consider all e-mails we receive until 23:59 CET on 15th March 2020.
– 3 winners will be picked randomly among those who have participated and sent the correct answers.
– You can only participate once, any attempt to participate twice or more times will lead to your disqualification.
– Prizes won’t be paid out in cash. Prizes will be sent by registered mail only once.
– The winners will be announced on this website, on our Facebook page and will also be notified per e-mail. You’ll be required to answer the e-mail 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 prizes.
– By taking part in the contest, personal data (first name, surname, e-mail address and address) will be collected. These data are needed in order to run the contest, particularly in order to match participation applications to their entries as well as to identify and notify the winners. This method of processing data is therefore required pursuant to Article 6 Paragraph 1 lit b of the GDPR to fulfil contractual obligations. The personal data collected will be processed and used by RoxetteBlog.com only to the extent that is required in order to run the contest. The personal data will be stored for the duration of the contest and – in order to process any claims relating to winnings and damages – for a maximum of 6 months afterwards and they will then be deleted. By participating you agree to all above mentioned and your name being published on this website as well as on social media channels in case you win.

 

 

 

 

 

UPDATE on 16th March 2020: 3 winners are picked. They are: Nikolett Házas, Gabriella Vadasi and Márton Mihályfi. The winners are informed via e-mail too.