The last time the PLECtionary got updated was eXXXactly 3 months ago today. Let’s celebrate it with adding some more picks to it!
Since the 2014 picks weren’t really used (check in the PLECtionary, why), it was evident Per needed new plectrums for the New Zealand – Australia leg of the tour. He shared a photo of his new guitar picks one day before the Auckland show. We could all agree on these were fitting NZ-Oz quite much and that they are hilarious with the funny texts on them.
Sandra Knospe decided to see the band live in Australia in February and during the concerts she attended she could collect all the latest Per Gessle plecs, as well as one Christoffer pick and one Micke N-S plectrum. After getting back home, she found the time to take the pics of all the beauties and tell the trivia she knows about them, so 8 plectrums are added this time to her already stunning collection. Check out the PLECtionary and look for the guitar picks No. 92-99!
There are plenty of the picks produced for NZ-Oz, so maybe there are enough left for at least the European leg of the tour. The designs are fitting Australia more, but of course we’re happy to catch them in Europe, too. 😉 (Update on 28th March: Per says there will be new picks for Europe.) 7 weeks left until the tour goes on! Woohoo!
Huge thanx for the updates, Sandra! We’re eXXXtremely happy that your collection is growing and growing!
Photo by Sandra Knospe
Per is talking about the plecs and more in this interview.
If you are interested in reading some more about Sandra’s collection, check out the interview with her.
We had to wait a year to be able to relive the sommartider of our lives, but now here it is! Gyllene Tider’s Dags att tänka på konserten was released on 23rd July. I would say it was worth the waiting. Even if it’s ”just” a DVD (I mean no Blu-ray around – who knows why…), the quality is great and what we can see on the DVD is simply fantastic. It contains a complete concert (24 songs, 1 hour 36 minutes), a documentary (1 hour 6 minutes) and 3 videos. Photos on the cover and in the DVD booklet are by Anders Roos. He’s the photographer who took those amazing shots for the Alla tiders Gyllene Tider book, which was written during the tour.
Concert
The stage scenes are from Skövde, but the crowd scenes are mixed from 2 concerts. Besides Skövde, some crowd cuts are from Eskilstuna, so if you were there at the last 2 concerts of the tour, there is a high chance you will see yourself.
What I felt when watching the concert was that I was there in Sweden again, on a summer night, being part of a loud crowd, seeing 5 energy bombs on stage. And it left a constant smile on my face during the whole show. Judging by what I saw, Skövde concert must have been one of the Top5 most energetic gigs. From the 2nd song the crowd was more reactive and I must say it’s amazing to see everyone doing the coreography Micke Syd shows during Min tjej och jag. When you are in the crowd in the front you can’t see such things and it must feel so great to see this reaction from your crowd when you are on stage.
Another fantastic thing to see is young and old (let’s say from 15 to 70) singing along to old and new GT songs. It’s unbelievable what music, THIS music can do to people.Too cool!
Camera angles are great, too. Grumpy Productions did a fab job. You might remember the posts (1; 2) on Gyllene Tider’s Facebook page about the camera techniques they used in Skövde. Looking good!
I left it for last, but it’s definitely one of the most important points: T.H.E. S.O.U.N.D. I.S. P.U.R.E. A.W.E.S.O.M.E.N.E.S.S.! Hats off to Christoffer Lundquist who did the mixing! So now we are in need of a live CD! Anyway, wasn’t it the case that we get one? Hm.
Documentary – Gyllene Tider sommaren 2013
It’s the same that was broadcast on TV4 last December. A fantastic one! You can read my review of it if you click HERE. Love to have it on DVD.
One more thing I must add is that towards the end of the concert part I felt the same I felt at the end of each gig last summer: I don’t want this come to an end! But the good thing with the DVD is that you can play it as many times as you wish. This one is definitely something I’ll play several times in my life.
If you haven’t bought / ordered your copy yet, do yourself a favour and get yourself this DVD. If you attended any of the concerts, the reason why is to relive those magic moments. If you couldn’t attend any of the shows, you’ll have the chance to jump and sing along in front of your TV now. Here are the links from where you can order the DVD: Bengans, Ginza, CDON.
We met Christoffer Lundquist in Göteborg before Marie’s concert in this city. The last time we met Christoffer was June 2011 in Prague and a lot has happened since then, so we thought it was about time again to sit down and chat about all the Rox-related projects he has been involved in as well as his solo and Brainpool projects.
Enjoy!
Judith: Thank you for your time! It’s been a long time, we met in 2011 last… You’ve been very busy since then!
Christoffer: Sure, a pleasure as always. And yes, lots of things going on.
Let’s start with Marie’s album. How did you get involved with it?
Micke and Marie started working on some of the songs a long time ago, some of them even 10 years ago. They asked during Roxette’s tour if I wanted to be part of recording the vocals because we did that with Roxette and we had lots of fun and it worked out very well. So that’s how it started, and then I got more and more involved. We recorded about half of the album in my studio, for the other half we used mainly what Marie and Micke had recorded themselves and built on those.
So how did you arrange the recordings? Did all the musicians come to your studio in Skåne?
Micke and Marie spent about 10 days in my studio the first time. Then they came to the studio a second time for five days. We also had Jens for a few days recording drums for some tracks. And then the rest we worked out together the three of us.
In an interview Micke told us that there are demos for most of the songs, but that we wouldn’t want to hear those, haha! Did they change a lot from demos to final?
Haha! Oscar is singing in some of them, actually. And I can’t really remember how much we changed. We built on some of the demos so the original kind of ended up on the album, but other songs were done from scratch in the studio, I don’t remember the demos to those. In that case we just heard the demo maybe once or twice and then we did the rest more or less on the fly. In some cases there were ideas on the demos that we wanted to keep, on other cases we started from scratch.
Marie and Micke worked with other song writers, were they involved in the recordings too?
Not really. They were not involved in the recording but more in the background and working with Marie on the lyrics. That was the most difficult part because lyrics are a huge part of Marie’s career and now that she doesn’t write many songs herself, she really needs lyrics that she can feel as if she had written them. That’s really tricky; it’s very personal, especially for Marie because she’s such an emotional singer. She cannot just sing something; she always sings texts that really mean something. So there were lots of attempts that didn’t work, we had new lyrics coming in all the time and every now and then we were like “Yes! This works!” It’s a tricky process because all of the song writers are very great writers; it’s hard to turn them down, someone writes a great text and you have to say “no sorry”, not because it’s not good enough, but because it doesn’t feel right for Marie, and you don’t want to hurt people… But Micke and Marie handled all that, it was their friends and colleagues, I was just standing by.
Did you use many new or interesting instruments this time, besides the sitar?
That was Micke’s or Marie’s idea, I cannot remember. They had that line on the demo “dididididi” (imitating the sound of the sitar at the beginning of the song) done with a cimbalo or something like that, but they wanted to find something more unique. It’s funny because that kind of guitar is used in a Swedish hit called “Jag vill ha en egen måne” by Ted Gärdestad. It was a huge 70ies hit and the artist is great, so it is also a bit of a hint to that song too. We used many of the other instruments as always, we just tried them out and used what we felt worked out. Micke played the church organ as well on “Jag undrar vad du tänker på”.
This album is very different to the other Marie albums, you can hear a lot of country and other styles that Marie hadn’t touched before. Did Marie and Micke already come with this in mind? How much of it is your influence?
Yes, that was not my influence, actually. The second track, “Det bästa som nånsin kan hända”, was almost finished when I heard it, for example. I hardly added anything to that one, one or two guitars maybe. That has the most country flavor I think. I just realised this when I listened to Marie’s previous albums to prepare for this tour that there are such different styles in the other albums, almost every album has its own style. And that is very much Marie, whatever the feeling at the moment is. So how do you like the album and the current style?
I think it’s great. Marie loves guitars… and you can hear that on the album. This album is one of her best. I had always wished she would do something like this.
Oh, great to hear. And yes, she loves electric guitars! We also had Staffan Astner on the album, he has this flashy style and Marie loves that. Whenever he goes crazy with the guitar she is like “Yes! Perfect!”
You could see that on Äntligen tour and on the current tour when she looks at you or Jokke and completely enjoys the solos!
Haha! It’s great to play that too.
So let’s move to another of the projects, mixing of Roxette live album/DVD/Blu-ray.
Yes, and it finally came out! Believe it or not, haha!
Yesterday Marie and the band rocked Västerås big time!
The first row was again mostly full of fans, but there were some also in the other rows, which probably helped to keep the mood happy and loud throughout the whole concert. Of course, the band was awesome and Marie was in a very good mood, so all this were the perfect ingredients that made the Swedes want to join the party. And they did already on song #2. After a few shows where we had to wait until towards the end to see some action, I was pretty surprised and felt so happy for the girl and boys on stage. They seemed to be happy with the response as well because they were all smiles, proud smiles.
Of course, Efter stormen was the song where really everybody (not only the fans) stood up and clapped and sang along, but you could see that in many other songs as well. Even the people at the balcony were standing and having fun, and Marie saw that and waved to them with a big smile. At some places we have seen skeptic or a bit angry faces when we stood up to some songs, but yesterday the audience seemed to like that. Like the 70-something ladies in the first row who had a blast; or the 4-6 Swedes that were sitting in row 2 who first looked shocked when we stood up but at the end thanked us in the first row for spreading the fun; or the two mid 50 ladies in the first row who were faster standing up than some of us!
The craziest rockiest song was Mellan sommar och höst. The audience was already standing up when Marie walked out to the stage again and everybody went wild with the amazing guitars and Marie’s rocky voice.
This concert was also the last one for many fans and Marie and band knew it, so they gave special attention to the ones on first row. Specially during Tro when everybody hugged and moved to the rythm of the song and many of us were all tears she gave those looks of hers to many of us. At the end, she also made sad faces to some of the fans she knew were saying goodbye to the tour yesterday night. It was not possible to hold back the tears, it is actually also not possible as I am writing this now. It has been so special… the love tour 🙂
Some fans had prepared flowers and a card for Marie to thank her for the great tour. Many fans had signed it and Anne gave it to Chris at the end of the show. The fans who waited for Marie after the concert explained that Micke had thanked them for coming to the concerts and said that fans turned the tour to something completely different and special and he added that the reviews were all very good because of that.
By the way, Clarence was in the audience yesterday night.
So now it’s just 2 concerts left: Luleå and Umeå. Those who are going to the last shows will surely give our best and party until the end!
Setlist (no changes)
1. Så stilla så långsamt [1992 – DSR]
2. Kom vila hos mig [2013 – Nu!]
3. Bara för en dag [1987 – ES]
4. Det regnar igen [1992 – DSR]
5. Sista sommarens vals [2013 – Nu!]
6. Ber bara en gång [1996 – IETSV]
7. Sparvöga [1989 off the Swedish drama TV series]
8. Ett hus vid havet [1985 – DSV]
9. Ett bord i solen [2007 – TFT]
10. Så skimrande var aldrig havet [1990 off Taube compilation album]
11. Ännu doftar kärlek [1984 – HV]
12. Så länge det lyser mittemot [1992 – DSR]
13. Om du såg mig nu [1987 – ES]
14. Efter stormen [1987 – ES]
15. Den sjunde vågen [1985 – DSV]
16. Mellan sommar och höst [1992 – DSR]
17. Den bästa dagen [1985 – DSV]
18. Tro [1996 – IETSV]
Judith’s review
Today it was finally the day for concert that many were waiting for, expecting it to be a blast! And what to say, the concert was more than super! Marie was welcomed by a very very loud crowd and she had to wait a bit to start singing the first song. After that she was all smiles! The shouting and the smiles remained the whole concert.
After an amazing concert in Linköping I didn’t think this could be topped, but wow! The band did an amazing job, I’ve never seen Surjo move around so much before, Chris, watch out! 😉
Jokke was all smiles all the time, as were all of us in the audience. Jokke also delivered an incredible solo in Den sjunde vågen, which also felt longer than usual. It was simply great to see the band and Marie have so much fun with us, or the other way around.
The most touching song was probably the last one, Tro. It was the last concert for many fans and I could see many of us hugging and singing along. It felt as if the song had suddenly become a hymn for love and friendship. Not to forget to mention that fans had arranged to bring roses to give to Marie at the end. Everybody had one rose, at the end of Tro all of them were brought to the front and put on the stage. Micke collected them all and took them backstage for Marie.
There were also some familiar faces in the audience. Lasse Lindbom, Anders Herrlin, Mats MP Persson, Jonas Åkerlund and, last but not least, Per and Åsa, just to mention a few. Per posted on Facebook that they celebrated the 25th anniversary of The Look reaching #1 in USA at the after-show party.
Patrícia’s review
Åsa & Per at Cirkus – sorry for the bad quality pic… Check out Roxette Rosario’s pic, too 😉
As you could already read here and there, Marie’s gig in Stockholm was marvellous with many famous people in the crowd. Oh yes, with Per among them! Woohoo! We’ve been expecting him to appear at this concert, but we couldn’t be sure he would really come until we saw Åsa, Per and Jonas Åkerlund arriving together 1-2 minutes before 19:30. They found their places in the 10th row, on the left side, close to the exit. After many Roxers realized Per was there, we started clapping and he and Åsa waved to us smiling. After some minutes we repeated it. It was awesome to see him in the crowd, sitting among us. Besides them, there were many other familiar faces and now I’m not talking only about the hardcore fans. Mats MP Persson (who was sitting in front of Per), Anders Herrlin, Clarence Öfwerman, Dea Norberg (she even posted a pic on her Instagram), Marie Dimberg, Lasse Lindbom were there in the audience, just to name some of them, but there were many other famous Swedish people in the crowd. Also Oscar, Marie’s son was there, sitting in the 6th row, together with his grandma, Micke’s mum.
One could have thought that this crowd would make Marie and the band nervous, but no! They were in TOP shape and rocked Cirkus! The sound was perfect and Marie’s voice simply blown us away. She was smiling a lot and the audience was clapping so much that some songs had to wait to be started. I think there was no concert where they could start Så stilla så långsamt so late, waiting for the audience to be silent. Marie enjoyed it so much, you could see it on her face. She was shining!
I must admit that the audience was very good at clapping, they could even follow the rhythm Surjo and Micke showed by clapping themselves, but if you ask about how many of them stood up… Hm. We, the international fans (Argentina, Austria, Brazil, Bulgaria, Czecz Republic, Germany, Hungary, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Russia, Switzerland, The Netherlands, USA etc.) were sitting at different places in the crowd, owing to the not so funny mechanism the tickets went on sale in October. Some got tickets in rows in the middle, some in the front, some in the back, others on the balcony. We thought it was a great chance to animate the Swedish part of the crowd even more, since we could do a little of this ”job” in every corner of Cirkus.
We stood up already at Kom vila hos mig and we expected the Cirkus crowd being at least as cool as Göteborg audience was and following us, but not really. Unfortunately, there were a lot of people in the middle and on the left of the first 4-5 rows who were not willing to stand up, so people in the back could have thought it was still better to be sitting. We thought, OK, maybe at the next fast song they would realize how they should act when seeing how Marie loves this reaction and they see the security guys didn’t make us sitting.
Oh yes, talking about security guys – who were not present at any other shows so far – Atli, from Show Security Sweden was there too. You surely remember him and his team from the Gyllene Tider tour. I greeted him after the concert and he said the show was great, he liked it a lot.
Back to the concert: Så länge det lyser mittemot made us stand up and dance again. Then there were some more in the crowd who followed us, but the left side was still sitting, only clapping. Efter stormen was our next party song. It rocked big time again! There were Swedes sitting in front of me and it was such a good feeling to see them deciding: ”OK, maybe now we could really stand up” and they did so. C’mon, people! There is nothing wrong with it… Live it!
Den sjunde vågen was fabulous this time again and I always have a big smile on my face when I see Marie’s reaction to the fact she has to go off stage. It’s different every time, but always so lovely. After she left the stage, the guys went crazy. Christoffer even throw away his hat. Hat was grabbed up by Jokke when they also left the stage. I have to mention that I think Jokke was the best on this concert from the 5 I’ve seen. He’s a great guitarist! We couldn’t stop clapping and being loud to have Marie back on stage and some minutes later she appeared again for the extra songs. We didn’t sit down and Mellan sommar och höst was again the song that made even more people stand up. Even Per stood up towards the end of it. Hats off, Mr. G! We’re very proud of you! 😉 Then came Den bästa dagen and many of us had the feeling it was really the best day of our lives. Such a fantastic concert it was! And it hadn’t ended yet. During Tro we stood up again and there were roses in our hands. We’ve been holding them up and waving them during the whole song. Thank you very much for the great idea, Christina Tholander and Nina Wolfframm and also thanx a lot to Heartland Anne, who organized roses for many fans and even a heart-shaped bunch of red roses for Marie. When the song ended, we’ve been forwarding the roses to the front and Micke was collecting them, while Marie got one bunch of red roses from a fan, handed over by Micke N-S and Chris collected the heart-shaped bunch. It looked fab and Marie was so happy to get the flowers. Awesomeness! (You can see it here, in the video I embedded and on these 3 Instagram pics: 1, 2, 3.) Per was leaving his seat before Tro ended, but Åsa stayed until the end of the song.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TaE7m1E1Vc
After the concert, there was a celebration of the 25th anniversary of The Look’s becoming No. 1. on the Billboard. The celebration took place in a separated area of the restaurant at Cirkus. Everyone looked very happy and enjoyed their time there. Per’s comment on tonight’s show:
TUESDAY EVENING UPDATE: Had a blast at Marie’s gig at Cirkus in Stockholm. Wonderful concert and Miss Effe + band in top shape. Great to see so many Roxers making a lotta noise. Afterwards some press + celebration with old friends. As you probably know by now….The Look No 1 in the US goes 25! Thanx Warner/EMI for being great hosts! Cheers, P.
We’re glad you enjoyed it! We had a blast, too! Unfortunately, this was my last concert on this tour. I’m very sad about it, but I’m grateful that I could be a part of it and enjoy every second of 5 absolutely fabulous and exceptional concerts. Tack så väldigt mycket Marie & the band! By the way, can you believe that only 4 shows left from this magical tour? Impossible. We need a next tour soon!
Setlist (no changes)
1. Så stilla så långsamt [1992 – DSR]
2. Kom vila hos mig [2013 – Nu!]
3. Bara för en dag [1987 – ES]
4. Det regnar igen [1992 – DSR]
5. Sista sommarens vals [2013 – Nu!]
6. Ber bara en gång [1996 – IETSV]
7. Sparvöga [1989 off the Swedish drama TV series]
8. Ett hus vid havet [1985 – DSV]
9. Ett bord i solen [2007 – TFT]
10. Så skimrande var aldrig havet [1990 off Taube compilation album]
11. Ännu doftar kärlek [1984 – HV]
12. Så länge det lyser mittemot [1992 – DSR]
13. Om du såg mig nu [1987 – ES]
14. Efter stormen [1987 – ES]
15. Den sjunde vågen [1985 – DSV]
16. Mellan sommar och höst [1992 – DSR]
17. Den bästa dagen [1985 – DSV]
18. Tro [1996 – IETSV]
We met Christoffer Lundquist in Göteborg before Marie’s concert in this city. The last time we met Christoffer was June 2011 in Prague and a lot has happened since then, so we thought it was about time again to sit down and chat about all the Rox-related projects he has been involved in as well as his solo and Brainpool projects.
One could have thought that this crowd would make Marie and the band nervous, but no! They were in TOP shape and rocked Cirkus! The sound was perfect and Marie’s voice simply blown us away. She was smiling a lot and the audience was clapping so much that some songs had to wait to be started. I think there was no concert where they could start Så stilla så långsamt so late, waiting for the audience to be silent. Marie enjoyed it so much, you could see it on her face. She was shining!