Aftonbladet

Aftonbladet: Per Gessle on social media websites

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Jens Peterson, Aftonbladet’s journalist, did an extensive report from the Warsaw concert on 19th June this year. He has also interviewed Per Gessle about his plans around the current World Tour and attitude to social media websites like Facebook or Twitter. Here are the most interesting quotes:

Response from fans is huge. The films are viewed by between 70,000 and 100,000 people. We get 500-600 new friends on Facebook every day.

[Band and crew have wondered whether there is a risk to put out too much on Facebook, but] this fear I can give a shit about. If you like Roxette, you get information every day. And it’s fun to do it. I wonder what it would’ve been like if this was when I was growing up. When I loved David Bowie over everything else – just imagine I would have gotten so much information. Or Lennon.

Yes, I do [Facebook & Twitter] almost exclusively on computer. I have an iPhone at home. In Sweden, I use my iPhone and I surf on the net on the way from the airport. I spend quite a lot of time on computer every day.

[Being active in social media] is really unlike me, because I’m not super technical and not much interested in the web. I’m not interested in the media itself. But one must applaud YouTube.

It’s so easy [to film everything with an iPhone]. I film a lot and choose the best clips. There may be two or twenty movies a day.

I do not think so [I use Facebook and Twitter more than traditional media], but I’m doing as little press as possible. I have seen how journalists in the Czech Republic and Spain built articles they write on the facts from our Facebook page.

The successes of the first half of the tour means that Roxette will be travelling with a larger stage and more equipment. We need to improve it a bit for the autumn tour.

Source: Aftonbladet

Roxette nominated for best live band!

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Roxette made it among the finalists for Aftonbladet’s annual Rockbjörnen awards. They are nominated for “live band of the year” (“Årets livegrupp”). Now the final voting is open to the public. There’s also a blank spot for “concert of the year” (“Årets konsert”), where a vote for Roxette’s Gothenburg show would be a lovely choice. You have to fill in artist, location and month (Roxette, Göteborg, Juli). The voting is open until August 24 and you can vote daily. Let’s go!

Making of the new video. La-la-la-lies.

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If you read an article in today’s Aftonbladet, so forget about it. It was written there that extras for the “She’s got nothing on (but the radio)” video did not receive any money (though they agreed on those conditions) and had no food…

According to Aftonbladet and translated by welchemusic.com – the extras had been promised some food but had to content with nothing but coffee and white bread (nothing but the radio would have been better!). A spokesperson for the production company apologized explaining that “it was a difficult location, but there was heat and no more than 30 people in the room. I would like to call these people and apologize as that we did not intend them to feel this way.”

Here is the director Mats Udd’s words of truth:

Got an email yesterday that Aftonbladet was looking for extras who had felt mistreated during the making of the video. A man named Michael Garderud (he previously found a plastic in food – read more about it in Svenska Dagbladet’s article) was an extra on the Roxette video we did. He even wrote on his blog that it was a good recording. But he changed his mind when he read my interview that “”it was fun to work with a big budget”. He called Aftonbladet and said how he had been mistreated during the filming. It is of course amazingly boring, a making of the video should always be enjoyable and as comfortable as possible, especially if you are there for free. But before you cry out in Aftonbladet, you should know that a high budget to me is not a particularly high budget, I have made budget videos throughout 2010 for no more than 20,000 SEK. That is how it looks like, there is no money in the Swedish music video world – but Michael does not know that. Since Roxette has nothing to do with the recording, so the news’ value is approximately equal to zero.

Bravo to Mats then. The video for the single should be available in any day now.

radiorox contributed to the article.

Roxette to perform in front of 10,000 people on August 14th.

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According to Aftonbladet‘s article Roxette is going to perform on a Anderstorp Raceway in Småland region, Sweden on August 14th during “The Race Legends” event. Over 10,000 people will be able to see Roxette’s performance, more than 45,000 will attend the whole event.

“Roxette hasn’t played Sweden since 2001, it feels great to be on stage in Sweden again. This will be much fun, I have been there several times and actually even raced there, too”, says Per Gessle.

According to TDR, the concert will last for about 90 minutes.

At the moment you can buy tickets only for the whole event. There will be few tickets especially dedicated for this concert, but it is unknown when they will be released.

TICKETS

MAP

Update: TDR added a short interview with Per. Yes, they aim to play a full show, running 60-70 minutes – but yes, there may be other artists as well. And there are more Roxette “things” to come beside this and the new album!

And Per likes to hear our wishes:

If you have nothing to do…. Pls write down your song suggestions for the Anderstorp show. Look forward to the hidden gems…

The gig is organized by Live Nation.