TV4 already did a short phone interview with Per Gessle on 11h January. Per said that he was in the US, working a bit on Mono Mind, his new project under which he released an album the next day, on his birthday. Mr. G said he would be celebrating his 60th birthday in Florida. Åsa organized a surprise party for him. The program leader asked what the most heart-warming moments in his career are if he looks back and Per said there are so many, but Roxette’s greatness at the end of the 80’s and in the 90’s is sure one of them. He said he is fortunate that he can work with his hobby and to the question if he likes getting older he replied that he still feels quite young and he still doesn’t know what he will become when he grows up.
Then on 12th January TV4 shared a video report about 5 times Per Gessle made whole Sweden sing along. With Gyllene Tider, Roxette and as a solo artist. The video is based on footages from some concerts during the past 40 years and earlier reports, as well as some photos from the past and PG walking on Tylösand beach recently and some years ago. Watch it HERE!
Nice to see Mr. G on TV so many times, but the main thing came on Nyhetsmorgon on his birthday. TV4 invited Per for a longer interview in the morning show. Watch it HERE! The interview was recorded some days before. The reporter, Anders Pihlblad and Mr. G talked about Per’s career, aging, success, future and his actual project, Mono Mind.
Anders first asked Per how it feels turning 60. Per said it’s surreal in a way, 60 is very much. At the same time it’s awesome, because he is reminded that thanks to his age he has been through so many things and lived a lot. Anders is curious if Per has ever worried about his age. Per says kind of. He realizes that time goes by and he sees for example that a lot of his friends or relatives have health problems when they are getting older and this is how they are reminded of getting older. Then he thinks that he is not 58 anymore. It was tough for him to lose his mother, brother and sister after one another in a short period of time. But nothing stands still and you have to learn to live with it. It’s hard to understand though, but you have to find your place in life. The Earth is actually still spinning. When people close to you die you feel emptiness and all people are handling it differently. Per says he partially uses his songwriting for that.
Anders and Per talk a bit about the book Att vara Per Gessle in which Per’s mother and his siblings also talked about Mr. G. Anders asks Per how it feels to have all this documented. Per says it’s awesome. He says that he learned it over the years that documenting as many things as possible is important. For example tours, recordings, projects. Nowadays it’s getting easier with mobile phones. They already recorded a lot of backstage videos and album recordings, as well as took photos during the 80’s. The quality of those materials is catastrophic though, but it’s of course much fun to have them anyway.
Anders reads a short part of the book. It’s when Per’s mom tells about Mr. G’s dolls. Per says he had a little Barbie doll collection. He has always been into style and design and it probably comes from his mother, because she was always good at such things. She was kind of a female Ernst, fixing everything. (Ernst Kirchsteiger is a Swedish interior designer, also program leader on TV4. – PP) So Per learned a lot from her and he likes when everything is in order and likes nice things. His mom was always quite modern and supported him even when his conservative father – who died in 1978 when Per was 19 years old – said he should have get a proper job. His mother bought his first guitar for example and encouraged him to play and sing. She thought it was fantastic that Per was creating his own world and wrote songs. So she was Mr. G’s first and biggest fan for sure.
Anders says Per was his first big idol. Per says ”wow!”. Anders says he brought some stuff from his collection. Per says ”shit!”. Haha. Anders shows the first LP he bought and it was Gyllene Tider’s ”Moderna Tider” that came out in 1981. Per says everyone felt that it was a great record, but they expected to sell like 10000 copies. They sold 140000 in the end. Per says it was awesome and they were so young back then. They were suddenly superstars, but also very uncertain and didn’t know much about anything. They did only 6 shows in public before they became No. 1 with ”Flickorna på TV2”. Per says they learned quite soon that as soon as you become successful it also has it’s backlashes that some wouldn’t want to deal with you anymore because they think you became too commercial. It was the same with Roxette and that also happened to ABBA in the 70’s. One has to be persistent, have the self-confidence and move forward.
Anders shows ”The Look” maxi single. Per looks at the cover and says ”tough guy and girl”. Haha. He says that Roxette had a fantastic journey. Roxette was huge during the first 10 and the last 10 years, but actually it’s still huge. The songs live on.
Anders shows a picture from 1988. Per smiles and says ”shit!” again. He appears in the pic and Anders is there too. He was interviewing Mr. G back then when Roxette had their tour premiere. Per says he looks like he wanted Anders to understand what he was saying, his gestures show that. Anders says then he asked if they would hit other countries too and Per replied they will hit the world. And some months later they became No. 1 in the US. Per says he can’t remember he was that optimistic, but he remembers he printed T-shirts with the text ”Today Sweden – tomorrow the world” and the Roxette logo. So he was determined and focused. He tells that they always wanted to work under their own terms. When they broke through in the US, their American record label wanted them to move there and work from New York or Los Angeles, but they didn’t want to. They wanted to keep their Swedish team and work from Stockholm. This is how they could keep their very own sound.
Anders and Per talk about Marie that she had to retire from touring. Per says she lives a quite private life nowadays, but they talk once in a while. It’s very sad what happened, but they had a wonderful journey together with Roxette.
Anders says it feels like Per is still curious and is trying out new things. He asks Per if he is satisfied with his success. Per asks back if one can be satisfied with his own success. He doesn’t know. He likes the creative work and write when he feels like it. The whole creative journey is very attractive for him and of course he wants as many people as possible to listen to his songs and sing along.
Anders wishes Per a fantastic birthday and Per thanks and says it was nice being there.
Then later during the morning show there was another report with Per about Mono Mind. Anders tells a bit about the project, that it has 4 fictive band members and they are releasing an album on Per’s 60th birthday and it’s actually Per Gessle behind this project. Watch it HERE!
There is manager Wicked Pete talking first and Harriet, the dog appears too, as well as Dr. Robot dancing in the crowd. Then Per starts talking and says he felt he wanted to record songs in a different way. He felt his voice limited his possibilities, because as soon as he starts singing everyone knows it’s him. So he tried out different manners, singing in various octaves and wrong keys, changed on computer. This way he found a new voice which is quite technical and maybe not too easy to recognize. It was exciting to record the songs this way and new ideas came up during the recordings. Then there were so many songs that he thought it could become an album.
The guys are talking about the 4 characters and Anders asks Per which one is him. Per says it’s Dr. Robot, the one who sings. He has a very similar personality to Per’s. Mr. G tells in pop history there are a lot of projects with fictional characters. He for example didn’t know David Bowie in 1973. Back then everyone was a figure, a character. Per says the fun thing is that a fictive band like Mono Mind can do anything.
Anders asks about the future, about touring with Gyllene Tider, as Per Gessle or with Mono Mind. Per laughs at the thought of Mono Mind touring. He says MM got 2 nominations on the NRJ Radio Awards in France and they were thinking as a fictive band how they could accept an award if they win. Haha. He also mentions that he would like to see the band members appear in a Family Guy episode. Why not.
My ambition with Mono Mind has always been to create a „classic” album, that’s why you have instrumentals like „Away Away Away” and „Lap Dancing” in there to glue things together. Also, I wanted to use the same lyrics in different songs to see what happened and how they worked in various environments. It’s all been a magic carpet ride for me. Every song has created a new urge for another one.
Per & Co. entered the stage at 20:30 and rocked big time with the opener The Look. After TL, Per told the crowd it’s always, always fun to be in Göteborg. I have to agree with him. I only remember fab shows in this city. PG said it wasn’t so long ago when he played in Gothenburg. It was last year. He asked if we were there. He got a loud yes as a reply from the audience. Christoffer and Magnus also said into the mic they were there. Haha. Then Mr. G said it’s bizarre that he has been writing songs for more than 40 years. The most songs he wrote for Roxette, so he thought to dive deep into that catalogue and play a few favourites, but he also sneaked in some of his solo songs to be on the safe side. The crowd was cheering for him and he asked them to sing along.
Mr. G said what a fantastic evening it is. The last time he had a fantastic evening, or better said a good day was in 1990. He said he woke up and found a note on his piano saying ”Hej, din tok, jag älskar dig” (Hello, you fool, I love you). It was left there by his then girlfriend, now wife, since he had to marry Åsa after such a cute note. After writing Joyride in the morning, it was still only 11 am, so PG had a little break and after lunch he wrote another song, SMT. Per was talking so much about Joyride that he even picked a white medium plectrum off his mic stand. The thing is that he plays the acoustic guitar (for SMT) with a thin red pick. We were wondering when he would change it. He was probably also distracted a bit by the fact that his power chord finger started bleeding again. Not as much as in Linköping, but it was visible. So one could get hold of some bloody picks this time again. 😉 While Chris and Malin-My were playing the intro in the front and Per was standing in the back, he might have realized he had the wrong pick in hand, but still hadn’t changed it. He was looking at his finger rather. Then Helena started singing and when Per came to the front, he was playing the guitar with the medium pick, then when he went towards the back of the stage, he threw the white medium pick away, towards his ginger tea-holding trolley and picked a thin red plectrum off his guitar, licked it to have it stuck to the finger (however, the blood would have done it, haha) and played on. Helena was singing beautifully, for which she got a huge applause from the audience again.
Then came the intro talk to IMHBL. Per said he sent the band 96(!) songs to rehearse for the tour. Magnus said they learned to play 102! They overdelivered. Haha. Per said it’s fake info. He said he was thinking about skipping one song, because there are so many others, but then came Magnus and actually, he has only 3 favourite songs. One of them is ”Livet är en fest” from Nationalteatern, the other is ”Happy Nation” from Ace of Base and the third one is what they are going to play right now. Magnus said to the crowd ”thank me later!” Haha. The crowd loved IMHBL. It would have been a big mistake not to include it in the setlist.
The crowd was loud, clapping and shouting, so Per and the band came back on stage, PG thanked the crowd and said what a fantastic evening it is. They performed QOR, one of Per’s favourite Roxette songs and of course Helena was cheered after the song. Then it was time for a little Joyride. How Chris and Per were teasing each other in the intro part was again much fun! During the song both Chris and Ola got on their knees and were playing their guitars like that. It was so cool! Helena sat on the edge of the stage in front of us and animated the crowd from there. She’s so good at that (too)! She had a tambourine in her hands and rocked using it. At the end of the song she put it on her head, like a crown. Looked so great! Haha. Then off they went.
PG & THE Band came back for the 2nd encore. Per thanked once again and he put his hand on his heart to emphasize how he wanted to absorb all the love they got from the crowd. Then he said: ”A Friday night in Göteborg! That would be a good song title actually.” Haha. They played LTYH after this and it sounded wonderful. The crowd’s sing-along was the loudest at this song. Great! Before they played the very last song, Per said it’s a special night, because this is the last concert on the European tour. He thanked the band and also the crew for their fantastic job, he thanked Live Nation that made the tour possible and also thanked the people that came to the shows and he mentioned those separately who came to several shows. Then he switched to English and said: ”Thank you very much, you know who you are! Thank you!” And he showed thumbs up and looked at those fans in the front row. He is so amazing! Ojojoj! The bittersweet goodbye was getting closer. TSHTSG, the closing song that probably became everyone’s favourite earworm during the tour in this new arrangement. Another MUST BE RELEASED (on CD and DVD) song! Just saying! 😉 Since I somehow wanted to thank Per and the band for the whole tour right there at the last concert, being fortunate enough to have seen 15 shows out of 20, I prepared