Borgholm

Per Gessle – En vacker kväll in Borgholm, Sweden – 1st August 2017 – #13

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Borgholm… 28 years and some days after the historical Listen To Your Heart video (and more) was filmed inside the ruins, we could be part of a magical event at the same place on 1st August.

The queueing started already the day before show day, some spent the night there in tents. More fans arrived in the morning and during the day on Tuesday. We knew that this would be the gig that attracts the most hardcore fans from around the world and so it was. People came from Argentina, Australia, Austria, Brazil, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Hungary, Pakistan, Poland, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the Netherlands, the UK, Uruguay. At least these are the countries of which I know about.

The security team was very cooperative and so there was no issue at the entrance. It went very smoothly and everyone could get to the spot he / she deserved to see the concert from, being it seats in the back or front row or the sides of the standing area.

The concert was held at the very same place as in the LTYH video. A real dream come true for all fans, except for the fact that it wasn’t a Roxette concert, but a Per Gessle show. But even that is so emotional. It was really an undescribable feeling to be there.

Before the gig started, during the support acts’ performance, Åsa, Chris, Clarence, Helena and their families as well as Magnus’ family went up to the side windows of the castle and we waved to them, they waved back. Andreas also went up and probably took pictures from there. Later Victoria (Sweden’s crown princess) and her husband, Daniel also appeared in the window and enjoyed the show from there. Victoria rulez! HERE you can watch her dancing to Mr. G’s melodies.

When Per first talked to the audience before Juni, juli, augusti, he mentioned that Roxette shot their video to Listen To Your Heart there and that the American crew thought the ruins were built just for the video. The crowd was laughing.

Min plats got back to the setlist on a new place and it sounded wonderful after Första pris. But this way there was no Tittar på dej när du dansar. We love seeing Malin-My playing not only the violin, but also the mandolin, so it would be great to have the song back on the setlist. Just saying. Anyway, Per thanked the crowd for the applause after Min plats. He said he is happy we liked it because that’s one of his favourite songs. Before Per started playing It Must Have Been Love, he had to drink a bit and when he got back to the mic he said he swallowed a mosquito. Haha. The sing-along to IMHBL turned out to be wonderful. After the song, Per said it was the night’s Dean Martin moment.

Regarding the sing-alongs, I think also the acoustics of the place helped a lot to make them sound beautiful, because during a lot of songs I heard a loud sing-along, but when I looked back, I couldn’t see too many mouthes moving. Anyway, the crowd was best at clapping that’s for sure. Or better said there were several active groups in the audience, the first 3 rows, of course and then in the middle a bigger group and on the sides some more. Those who were sitting in the back didn’t get up from their seats. Not even during Sommartider…. Hej hej… Yeah, we know, it’s mostly the Swedes and they are not the ones who like to stand up, no matter what. But at least they were clapping hard.

We had nice weather almost all day, but the rain couldn’t wait anymore, so it started falling during Spegelboll and from then on. We quickly put on our ponchos and didn’t pay too much attention to the rain. When you are at such a magical place, you just don’t care. Anything can happen.

Åsa was of course filming a lot again (check out the videos on YouTube, GessleHomeVids) and how she was looking at her husband, admiring him, aaah, so sweet! She was singing along, dancing a bit and you can see in her eyes that she is still so much in love with Mr. G. And that goes vice versa. What a fab couple they are!

The best band presentation so far was in Borgholm. All band members got a huge applause and cheering and as it was Per’s nameday, Magnus made the crowd sing and cheer Per too. Per was throwing kisses and said he became speechless he even forgot where to continue the band presentation. HERE you can watch it all. Just awesome!

 

After the brand presentation Chris played the intro to The Look and it was a bit disappointing that he didn’t play Listen To Your Heart, but När vi två blir en again. We were so expecting LTYH at this place. Anyways, the intro turned out to be psychedelic just like at any other show. Chris rox!

The drum intro to Sommartider was fantastic again. Andreas is doing a fab job and knows how to get the crowd into party mood.

The concert ended with Småstadsprat. Or at least from the band’s side. After they took a bow, before they went off stage, the front part of the crowd started singing Listen To Your Heart.

It was a concert to remember! A pity that Anders Roos wasn’t there, because he would have taken fantastic pictures of Mr. G and the band inside this most awesome venue.

Per after the show:

BORGHOLM, ÖLAND! Oh yea, classic ground. This is the castle where we recorded the Listen To Your Heart-video (and Dangerous!) back in 89. Still magnificent and a joy to visit. And boy, did we have a fab time. Wonderful crowd + a splendid band on the loose = lots of unexpected silliness around every corner. Love that. Thanx everyone for showing up. One to remember! /P.

All photos in the article are taken by Patrícia Peres.

Setlist

1. På promenad genom stan
2. Vilket håll du än går
3. Juni, juli, augusti
4. Det hjärta som brinner
5. Segla på ett moln / Första pris
6. Min plats
7. It Must Have Been Love
8. Honung och guld
9. Kung av sand
10. Här kommer alla känslorna (på en och samma gång) / Flickan i en Cole Porter-sång
11. Ljudet av ett annat hjärta
12. Spegelboll
13. Gå & fiska!
Band presentation
14. The Look (with När vi två blir en as intro)

Encore:
15. Varmt igen (with Queen of Rain as intro)
16. Tycker om när du tar på mej
17. Joyride

Encore 2:
18. Sommartider
19. Småstadsprat

Videos:

Min plats
It Must Have Been Love
Gå & fiska!
The Look

Articles, pictures:

Svensk dam
Barometern
Hänt
Ölandsbladet
Expressen

 

Roxette in ”Filmen om Badrock”

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As we already wrote about it in March, a film about Badrock (“Filmen om Badrock”), where Marie Fredriksson and Per Gessle performed as Roxette for the first time, premiered in Swedish cinemas on 7th March. From a March TV4 interview with Björn Skifs (who is behind the whole Badrock idea) it turned out that it would be worth watching by Roxers, because besides Badrock concert material from the ’80s in Borgholm and backstage moments where we can see Marie, Per, Roxette, we even get to see Marie looking back at those times and hear her talking about her experiences.

Now the film had its TV broadcast premiere on 3rd June on TV4 (can be watched in Sweden only). Better said, a TV cut of it, because the original movie is 1 hour 55 minutes long, the TV cut is 66 minutes only. So a lot is left out and this way there might be even more Marie and Per and Roxette in it. Let’s hope the movie is out on DVD in the near future and we get to see the whole thing.

The TV cut contains footage from the past 30 years (Badrock history: 1986-1992; 2016), on-stage moments, backstage moments, rehearsals, how the concerts were recorded from the air, the royal family’s visits at the shows, as well as interviews with several artists, Marie among them. Interviews are with Björn Skifs, Anne-Lie Rydé, Marie Fredriksson, Pernilla Skifs, Anders Berglund, Nina Söderquist, Tommy Nilson, Leif Larsson, Lena Philipsson, Lisa Nilsson, Sharon Dyall, Marie Bergman, Peter Milefors, Mats Ronander.

Marie says Badrock was huge and there were a lot of good artists and the weather was incredibly warm. She says she is happy she could work together with Anders Berglund, it was easy to work with him.

Per in a short 1987 Öland Radio interview says Badrock is fun and playing tennis with Peter Milefors is cool. Mr. G says he and Marie created a group called Roxette and they would first perform at Badrock. Then there is a Marie interview cut again and she says, ”Like Lovers Do” at the beginning was a big song for Roxette and she was incredibly nervous to perform it. Everything was so new, but it was an awesome experience.

Sharon Dyall says when she was singing together with Marie and Sanne Salomonsen, it was real girl power. Marie says they had a powerful song (”Girls”) and she always thought that Sanne sang so damn good  and she was wondering how the hell she could join in, but in the end it turned out to be really good and they had so much fun. Those times were really amazing.

It’s great to see Borgholm then and today, so beautiful. It will be a pleasure to see Per playing there this summer, but also sad to think about the fact that Roxette AND all the fans missed the chance to have a concert and see Roxette playing there in 2015. Would have been an out of the world experience both for the band and Roxers for sure. And of course, we still don’t give up hoping for the complete 1989 Roxette gig in Borgholm to be released one day.

Some stills from the TV cut of ”Filmen om Badrock”:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanx for your technical support, Gabriela Demichelli!

Roxette at Badrock – cinema premiere

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As we could already read it in press releases, a film about Badrock (“Filmen om Badrock”), where Marie Fredriksson and Per Gessle performed as Roxette for the first time, will premiere in Swedish cinemas on 7th March. So far we didn’t know what exactly the film would contain, but this morning TV4 had an interview with Björn Skifs (he is behind the whole Badrock idea) and they showed some parts. AND… AND… AND… besides Badrock concert material from the ’80s in Borgholm and backstage moments where we can see Marie, Per, Roxette, we get to see Marie looking back at those times and hear her talking about her experiences. How absolutely fantastic is that!

In the TV4 cut you can hear Per on Öland Radio in 1987 saying he and Marie created a group called Roxette and they would first perform at Badrock. Then you see Marie talking, as natural as only she can be, in her stylish black leather jacket. She says, ”Like Lovers Do” at the beginning was a big song for Roxette and she was incredibly nervous to perform it. Everything was so new, but it was an awesome experience.

HERE you can watch a video where you can see Marie with your own eyes. Watch it mainly from 3:07. 😉

Let’s see if the film is out later on DVD as well or if it will be broadcast on TV. And if it contains much more than what we could see in this short video. Would be cool!

Still is from the TV4, Nyhetsmorgon video showing parts of “Filmen om Badrock”

 

Thank you, Carola Lindberg for watching the TV this morning and that you let us know about it!

WANTED – Complete Borgholm gig on DVD

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The demand to see Roxette’s complete Borgholm gig(s), recorded on 25th-26th July 1989 is h.u.g.e. There is an evergreen discussion among Roxers since the ’90s and we just can’t conclude what might have happened to the recorded materials.

Collage of some WANTED pictures shared during the flashmob.

The discussion started again during the last days of December when Sandra Knospe came up with the idea to organize a flashmob to show how many of us want the complete Borgholm gig on DVD. The plan was to post one or more screenshots of the live scenes that are already available of the Borgholm shows. The idea was of course supported by tons of us Roxers. Sandra created a cool ”WANTED – Complete Borgholm gig on DVD” background pic on which anyone could insert their own preferred Borgholm live stills. Those who were more into completely ready stuff either reposted others’ pics or posted the well-known What Do We Want meme generated by Zoltán Dúl stating ”Who are we?” ”Roxers!” ”What do we want?” ”The full Borgholm-gig on DVD!” ”When do we want it?” ”For Christmas 2017!” Clear messages on both types of pictures.

We had been waiting impatiently for the time (2nd January) to come when we could all ”spam” Roxette’s Facebook page with our pics. If you check posts by others on the page, you’ll see that quite some Roxers joined the flashmob. We all love such happenings.

Later we got a little spam back from Mr. G. He shared some Memory Lane Monday pics on all the Facebook pages he is handling. At the same time, we could realize he saw the flashmob posts, but all he ”reacted” on them was sharing the old RXB article that collected those live materials which should be released one day, as well as posting the official video to Dangerous with the text ”Summertime at the Borgholm Castle. /P.” Oh. Yeah. THAT’s the summertime we would like to know more about. 😉

3 years ago Per posted on Roxette’s Facebook page that they were ”having discussions with EMI (Warner) about re-releasing all VHS/DVD Rox live + documentaries from the past. How about that? Maybe a huge box set? Rox channel on YouTube? Guess the hardest part is to find the stuff in the vaults….” A week later Mr. G was excited to post another update telling ”Hope to get most of the live VHS & DVD releases from the past out in the open (in top quality) for your insatiable eyes and ears to enjoy. It’s a little messy in the archives at the moment due to the huge EMI/Warner-merger but I’ve got new batteries in my flashlight! We’re on the case, promise.”

To help the team what to look for in the archives, Tomasz collected all possible live performances worth to release in an article.

It seems that the mess still couldn’t be sorted out completely, however, according to the rumor TDR shared there will be a DVD box including ”Sweden Live! (Norrköping 1988), Look Sharp Live (various 1989), Live-Ism (Sydney 1992), Crash!Boom!Live! (Johannesburg 1995) and Room Service (Stockholm 2001) from the Telenor webcast” without extras.

Last June when we interviewed Per, he still couldn’t tell us details about the DVD project. All he could share was his thought that ”the first things that should be made available are all those old live VHS-tapes and DVDs that’s not around anymore”.

Since most people nowadays don’t even have a machine to play VHS, it’s always nice to see old materials being released on DVD. Blu-ray is in this case out of the question, as those old tapes are probably not of real high quality for a BD release. But ”just” re-releasing old stuff is a bit sad. We are sure there is more to include.

Back to the original topic, Borgholm. What happened to the live recordings? Has there ever been a complete recording? Of both Borgholm shows and rehearsals maybe? Or was it just some footage we could already see in this or that video and on Look Sharp Live VHS? Nah… with such technology back then, shot by an American crew it’s impossible. There must have been a complete recording. Or if not complete, there is surely much more than what we could see so far. But where is that material hiding? Deep down in a cellar? Is it lost? Did the tapes get burnt? Or? Just for the record, we are happy with any raw cut material as well. It would look sharp as an extra in the DVD box. 😉 Haha.

Until we find out what happened (hope dies last…), you can still enjoy these videos and keep your fingers crossed: Listen To Your Heart, Dangerous, Paint, Dance Away, Cry, Silver Blue.

P.S.: Borgholm being such an important place in Roxette’s history, we are very happy about the fact that at least Per will play there this summer on his solo tour.

 

Roxette may set a new attendance record in Kalmar

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Roxette’s first concert in Sweden this year is on 18th July in Kalmar and according to the organizer’s, Nöjet Konsert’s forecast, the gig might be sold out soon. As Östra Småland informs, the attendance record at Fredriksskans stadium was set on 4th September 1949, when 15243 people were there to see a football match between Kalmar FF and Malmö FF.

Gyllene Tider played at the same stadium in 2013 and they almost hit the record with 14946 people in the audience. The organizers expect Roxette to attract around 15000 people, so this way Roxette would hit the number of attendee’s of the GT show.

Talking about Kalmar being soon sold out and seeing that there are 3 gigs of other Swedish artists on the list of Borgholm concerts this summer, but the day after Roxette’s Kalmar show is still free at Borgholm Castle, can’t help dreaming about an extra show being added to the already impressive list of European tour stops. In case you haven’t voted yet, you can still do it in THIS article from last December. Just for fun. 😉 Dream on!

If you don’t have your ticket for the Kalmar concert yet, HERE you can buy it.

roxette_kalmar