Per Gessle

Per Gessle Unplugged Tour – #12 – 26th April 2022 – Kalmar

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Kalmar would have been the closing gig on 15th December 2021 originally, but instead it became the best show so far on this postponed tour leg. You could feel already in the beginning of the concert that it would become a fab one. The audience was very active during the whole evening. Clapping along, singing along most of the songs and laughing out loud at the jokes on stage. The band enjoyed it a lot and they were in a great mood too. Also, they were playing and performing wonderfully. What a combo!

Last night there was no smoke on stage and indeed, Per had no issue with his throat this time. Keep it this way! However, after På promenad genom stan he took a tissue and told the crowd it’s pollen season. At that point, someone in the crowd started singing the first words of THIS song and everyone was laughing so hard on and off stage. Per even applauded the one who sang. That was too cool!

Per mentioned that Helena was born in Kalmar and the crowd really loved her. They cheered Helena everytime she was singing, especially after Småstadsprat. Well-deserved!

Beforethe second GT song came on the setlist, Mr. G told they thought to play some more Gyllene Tider and asked whether the next song should be Chrissie, hur mår du? or Tuff tuff tuff (som ett lokomotiv). Christoffer said it should be Revolver upp. Someone in the audience shouted Chrissie. PG said they would play Det hjärta som brinner. The crowd was very happy about this one too.

When Helena, Magnus and Christoffer went off stage before Ljudet av ett annat hjärta, Chris said they would drink schnaps. Someone in the crowd shouted „I’m coming too!” Per’s reaction was to Chris: „you’ve got a friend, Christoffer!” Then Clarence and Per played LAEAH. Most beautiful song on this tour (if I haven’t mentioned it enought times yet)!

After Tuffa tider, Per asked for more ginger tea, but a stronger one than what he had so far. Christoffer’s reaction was „ginger tea” huh? Micke N-S was right back with a mug of fresh tea. Someone in the crowd shouted „Honung och guld” at this point. Per said „it’s not a bad song”.

When before Min hälsning PG said it’s time to end the show, the crowd shouted several loud nooooo-s. After the song, the audience stood up and applauded and cheered the band who were leaving the stage. They were back in a short time, because the crowd didn’t stop clapping.

Before the last song in the first encore, PG asked if we want one more. Someone in the crowd shouted „two”. And the one who shouted Honung och guld before, shouted again. Haha.

After the first encore, the crowd stood up again and gave a standing ovation. PG & Co. were back on stage in a minute and before they started playing Vid hennes sida, Per said it’s from the latest – he hopes not the last – GT album. Someone in the crowd shouted in excitement: „Excuse me, what did you say?” Haha.

After Per told the story that there is one song he didn’t want to play at all, but Magnus insisted on it, Christoffer said, of course now everyone knows they would play Björn Skifs’ Hooked on a Feeling. Per laughed and said „Ooga-Chaka, it’s gonna be fun”! Haha. Sommartider was a blast again, of course and got the whole audience standing. After the gang finished the song, the crowd was clapping for a very long time and the band enjoyed it. They waited for a while before starting to play the last song. Everyone was happy to hear När alla vännerna gått hem as the closing ballad. Obvious ending: standing ovation again! Amazing show it was!

Next stop is Örebro on Saturday, 30th April!

Setlist

1. Kung av sand
2. På promenad genom stan
3. Flickan i en Cole Porter-sång
4. Småstadsprat
5. Min plats
6. Tycker om när du tar på mej
7. Det hjärta som brinner
8. Ljudet av ett annat hjärta
9. Varmt igen
10. Tuffa tider
11. Juni, juli, augusti
12. It Must Have Been Love
13. Vilket håll du än går

Band introduction

14. Här kommer alla känslorna
15. Min hälsning

Encore 1
16. Födelsedag
17. Listen To Your Heart (dedicated to Marie Fredriksson & Pelle Alsing)
18. När vi två blir en

Encore 2
19. Vid hennes sida
20. Sommartider
21. När alla vännerna gått hem

Photos in the article are taken by Patrícia Peres.

Per after the gig on Facebook:

Wow! Amazing evening in Kalmar. Thx everyone for singing along and showing us a good time. One to remember for sure!!!!

And on Instagram:

Wunderbar evening in Kalmar. Oh Yea! Thanx everyone for singing along and having a good time. Amazing. I got the best job in the world!

An on Twitter:

Truly amazing evening in Kalmar! Thx everyone for singing along and sharing these fab two hours with us. See you soon again. Promise.

Per Gessle Unplugged Tour – #11 – 25th April 2022 – Jönköping

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The original date of the Jönköping gig would have been 14th December last year, but for known reasons, it was postponed until last night. The venue greeted us with a PG Unplugged sign already at the entrance of the concert hall building. Inside, at several places, there were monitors showing a pic of Per and Helena from an earlier unplugged concert.

When PG & Co. entered the stage, Per talked to the crowd and said they are happy to be in Jönköping and that they are glad the audience chose them instead of the hockey match that was played in the arena next to the concert hall. After playing the Nashville songs, PG asked the crowd if everything was fine and if they wanted to know the scores from the match. Half of the audience shouted yes, half shouted no. Haha. Christoffer asked what teams are playing and Per replied „HV against PV” – he said he has no clue. The crowd was laughing. Per told he was at one hockey match in his life in the 70’s or 80’s. It was Halmstad Hockey Club’s match and they lost, actually against HV (the Jönköping team). The crowd gave it an applause. Later Per asked the crowd again if they wanted to know the scores, then the audience shouted no. PG said 1-1. Haha.

The band sounded great and the crowd was clapping along several songs, even singing along. The jokes and anecdotes also worked very well on this audience, they laughed a lot and applauded the guys and girl loudly.

Per had some issues with his throat, but it turned out it was because of too much smoke on stage. Once he went off stage and asked the tech guys to make it less, because it was irritating his throat. He asked for more warm ginger tea as well. Keep your throat safe, Mr. G!

Ljudet av ett annat hjärta, Tuffa tider, It Must Have Been Love, Vilket håll du än går and Sommartider were the highlight songs in Jönköping.

Before the first encore, the crowd didn’t stop clapping until Per and the gang came back on stage. Per said they would play a little more and someone in the crowd shouted „one more hour!”, to which Per reacted „one more hour? Would be a pleasure, but I have to go home to watch the hockey on YouTube or somewhere.” Haha. They started playing Födelsedag.

After the first encore, everyone stood up and cheered the band and they didn’t sit down and didn’t stop clapping until the gang was back again soon. Everyone sat down for Vid hennes sida, but Sommartider became a standing song of course. And even if När alla vännerna gått hem became seated, the audience was up on their feet again before Per, Helena, Clarence, Magnus and Christoffer took a bow.

The match ended at the same time as the concert, so it was quite tough to get out of the parking area, but who cares. It was a wonderful evening!

P.S.: For those, who are interested, HV71 (local team) played against Björklöven (from Umeå) and Björklöven won 3-1. Oops. Nevermind. Those who chose the concert won a lot!

Next stop is Kalmar on 26th April!

Setlist

1. Kung av sand
2. På promenad genom stan
3. Flickan i en Cole Porter-sång
4. Småstadsprat
5. Min plats
6. Tycker om när du tar på mej
7. Det hjärta som brinner
8. Ljudet av ett annat hjärta
9. Varmt igen
10. Tuffa tider
11. Juni, juli, augusti
12. It Must Have Been Love
13. Vilket håll du än går

Band introduction

14. Här kommer alla känslorna
15. Min hälsning

Encore 1
16. Födelsedag
17. Listen To Your Heart (dedicated to Marie Fredriksson & Pelle Alsing)
18. När vi två blir en

Encore 2
19. Vid hennes sida
20. Sommartider
21. När alla vännerna gått hem

Photos in the article are taken by Patrícia Peres.

Per after the gig on Facebook:

Thanks Jönköping for a splendid Monday evening. We had a blast, could go on forever!! Soooo many people in spite of the hockey game going on around the corner. See you all soon again. Lots of love from PG + band!

And on Twitter:

Thanks for a splendid Monday evening, folks. Amazing to sell out this place in spite of the hockeygame going on around the corner. Loved every minute of this. See y’all soon again!

Per Gessle Unplugged Tour – #10 – 21st April 2022 – Karlstad

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When I wrote my latest PG Unplugged report in Halmstad, November 2021, I finished the article with this sentence: „Next stop is Karlstad on 8th December!” Oh well… a lot of things happened since then. First of all, on 7th December we were informed that Mr. G had tonsillitis, so some shows – including Karlstad – had to be moved to January. We were still hoping for other December dates to be kept if Per got well, but unfortunately, he had a longer fight with that tough tonsillitis and all remaining shows were moved to January. We were (and still are) in Covid times, and on 22nd December we got the news that the shows in January would be affected by the new rules related to Covid-restrictions in Sweden and had to be moved to a later period in the spring. We had to wait until 20th January to get to know the new dates for the postponed gigs and there came a couple of additional dates in new cities as well. The date was set, the tickets were in our pocket, no tonsillitis in sight. That’s how the show in Karlstad finally happened last night vs. the originally planned December date.

Almost 5 months passed since the last time we could hear Per & Co.’s unplugged performance live, but it was all worth the waiting! The band was in top shape, as if there was no major break between the 2 gigs. However, after the gig Per said that at the rehearsal the day before they didn’t sound too good. For show day they were their old selves again it seems. Haha.

The crowd reactions were nice. The audience was rather clapping along than singing and reacted to Per’s, Christoffer’s and Magnus’ stand-up anecdotes with laughing. The anecdotes were actually the same as before (from Roy Orbison to It Must Have Been Love via Tom Petty and Dallas), but one can never get tired of these stories. And some extra funny interactions were born between the band members on stage. It was real fun to see and hear their reactions to each other’s comments. One must love the chemistry between these guys and girl.

Before the show started, Per told they arrived the day before and tested Karlstad’s wild night life. He said it’s much fun to be in Karlstad.

The capo was in focus last night again for several songs. Here you could see Mr. G got out of practice during the past 5 months, but also Micke N-S, who brought the guitar to Per with the capo on for Sommartider and after Per started to play it, he realized that it should be without the capo. He said it’s not only him who has problems with capos it seems and laughed.

Before PG & Co. played Det hjärta som brinner, Per said Göran celebrates his 60th birthday today. The audience was cheering, some people even started singing the Swedish birthday song. Mr. G said „Happy birthday, Göran!” and that they play this song for him.

Ljudet av ett annat hjärta is still the No. 1 song for me on this tour. I could really listen to it 24/7 and even for that one song it would be worth going to see each gig. So beautiful how Clarence and Per play it together and Per’s vocals on it.

Before Vilket håll du än går Per told the story of Mazarin, how Helena became part of his gang and that as we know, he likes to mix his voice with female vocals. He now added „I actually need all the help I can get”. The crowd was laughing.

After the first encore, the audience stood up and was clapping and shouting to have the band back for another encore and they soon got back on stage. Then everyone sat down for Vid hennes sida, but were up on their feet again when Per said for Sommartider we should stand up. När alla vännerna gått hem, was a seated song again, but the gang got a well-deserved standing ovation at the end of the concert and they appreciated it.

Next stop is Jönköping on 25th April!

Setlist

1. Kung av sand
2. På promenad genom stan
3. Flickan i en Cole Porter-sång
4. Småstadsprat
5. Min plats
6. Tycker om när du tar på mej
7. Det hjärta som brinner
8. Ljudet av ett annat hjärta
9. Varmt igen
10. Tuffa tider
11. Juni, juli, augusti
12. It Must Have Been Love
13. Vilket håll du än går

Band introduction

14. Här kommer alla känslorna
15. Min hälsning

Encore 1
16. Födelsedag
17. Listen To Your Heart (dedicated to Marie Fredriksson & Pelle Alsing)
18. När vi två blir en

Encore 2
19. Vid hennes sida
20. Sommartider
21. När alla vännerna gått hem

Photos in the article are taken by Patrícia Peres.

Per after the gig:

Thanks for a truly amazing night in Karlstad. LOADS OF PEOPLE + LOADS OF FUN! Five months off the road could mean rusty business but this band still amazes me every time we play together. This tour is a killer in my book. Thanks Karlstad for love and affection!!!! See you soon again! Badabam from PG.

Per Gessle interviewed by Stella Event

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Stella Event, promoter of the last 3 unplugged gigs up in the north of Sweden did an interview with Mr. G.

SE: – Do you have any dream collaboration? Either as a dream that already came true or as something you still hope for?

PG: – No, all my heroes in music have already died. Or about to die. I’m so old so all my heroes are even older, like The Beatles and Tom Petty and Joni Mitchell. So there is like no one. I’ve had the chance to meet many, like Paul McCartney, Keith Richards and Springsteen and it obviously feels super big but it would feel uncomfortable to sit in a studio with one of them.

And when it comes to modern musicians, they work in a completely different way, where you make electronic music separately and then you send the material to each other. And I have had the opportunity to do that, I have worked with David Guetta and a bit with others, but that’s a different thing. I feel that I have grown old in that way, that I like it the way I can do it. When I talk about music with my son, who is 24, we don’t understand each other at all because we hear so many different things. But it was the same when I grew up, so my parents didn’t understand why I wanted to listen to T-Rex.

SE: – As organizers, we often take care of the artists’ requests. Do you have something specific that you always want in the dressing room? And when you toured the world with Roxette, did you have any crazier rock star requests then? Just because you could like…

PG: – Nowadays, my tour guide always asks if I want the same as usual in the dressing room and I never know what it is, but I usually want flakes, in case I don’t have time to chew. It can be irregular times so then it’s good to have some energy. And then I want fresh ginger for the throat. And then we usually ask for a little champagne, but we drink it after the concert and only if we in the band think we have earned it. Type of stuff like that…

In the past, it was maybe a little more extravagant stuff and on a tour I kept asking for Mouton Rotschild, such a very expensive wine, and it was mostly to see if anyone could provide us with it. And there was ONE guy, his name was Andre – you see I remember his name – in Zurich who pounded a bottle of Mouton in my dressing room. Otherwise you were disappointed every time. But this was a long time ago, so it’s statute barred.

SE: – Is there anything you always do before stepping on stage? Either as a warm-up or for more superstitious reasons for it to go well?

PG: – I actually never sing up. Marie always sang up, on the last tour she could sing up for two hours. But I usually never do it, I do sound check and then it must be good. I probably have no such fuzz for me but I always want to go last on stage. I kind of want to gather the band and feel that everyone is on the same wavelength and like to look everyone in the eye. So I’m a bit of a guide dog. And I’m so addicted to this friendship in the group.

That’s a bit what made me so scared at the thought of this tour because it felt so naked. I have always played in front of a large audience and with a large band and so on. Now I’m the only guitarist so it becomes obvious if a mistake happens. But I got the question from the management at Hotel Tylösand and since the max. audience was 500, I thought that if it fails miserably, there wouldn’t be so many witnesses. So we did two gigs there and then it became an acoustic tour.

SE: – This tour is described as “dipping your toes in your song catalogue”. Is there any song in your song catalogue that you yourself thought would be a real hit but didn’t really break through?

PG: – It’s a difficult question. I myself am the world’s worst at hearing what can be a single and what cannot. In addition, there are so many factors that are needed for a song to become a hit, especially internationally. But we can say this, “Spending My Time” of Roxette was on the “Joyride” album in 1991. And then there were three songs that our record company said would be hits, it was “Joyride”, “Fading Like A Flower” and “Spending My Time”. And it was the last one they thought would be the biggest. It was during the MTV era that it got the biggest video budget, four million or something like that. But then when it was to be released and become our fifth America number one, our record company collapsed. So all of a sudden no one worked with Roxette and our record was almost forgotten in the US, which led to “Spending My Time” not really being the big song that everyone had thought.

Get your tickets for the PG Unplugged Tour HERE!

Per Gessle performed at the fundraising concert for Ukraine

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Per Gessle performed at the fundraising concert in solidarity with Ukraine at Avicii Arena, Stockholm tonight. The almost 3-hour-long Hela Sverige skramlar show started at 20:00 CET and could be watched live not only on spot, but thanks to the organizers, also on SVT and other online channels (TV4 Play, Aftonbladet, Expressen). Swedish Radio also broadcast the event. The show will be available online for two months to watch on SVT, HERE.

The evening was filled with unique performances of some of Sweden’s foremost artists (Per Gessle, Eva Dahlgren, Peter Jöback, Wilmer X among many others) who showed up for free. Ticket revenues go in full to six different organizations in their work to curb the humanitarian crisis and promote human rights and democracy (International Red Cross, Proliska, UN Women Sweden, Fight for Right, Civil Rights Defenders and The Media Initiative for Human Rights).

As Per said earlier in a press release:

What is happening in Ukraine is undemocratic, indefensible and inconceivable. Difficult, if not impossible, to understand. You would think that no one in our modern times would have to experience such situation. I played a lot both in Russia and in Ukraine and the people of both countries are absolutely amazing. I have unforgettable memories from there that I saved deep in my heart. How could this happen?

Björn Ulvaeus from ABBA opened the event with a wonderful speech about peace and freedom.

Emma Molin and Fredrik Skavlan were the program leaders and after 4 performers they announced that 16 million SEK had been collected until then. While they talked, you could see Per and the band in the background, the crew changing the set for them. Mr. G entered the stage together with Helena Josefsson, Clarence Öfwerman, Magnus Börjeson and Ola Gustafsson to perform the 5th song at the gala. Listen To Your Heart sounded beautiful in that full arena!

All other artists also gave their best at the event. Even performers from Ukraine took the stage. Don’t miss Maria Sur singing Survivor (Destiny’s Child). So powerful!

Thank you, Per & Co. and all appearing on and providing support off stage, as well as everyone using Swish and any other ways to support Ukraine! At the end of the show it was announced that more than 60 million SEK was collected. [Update on 4th April: Contributions continued to come in on Sunday and the total collected is currently 75.805.615 SEK.]

Stills are from the gala video.