Per Gessle Unplugged Tour – #17 – 5th May 2022 – Karlskrona

Karlskrona wouldn’t have happened, if the December dates of the tour weren’t postponed. This concert was added as a new date to the 2022 tour leg. And what a great idea was to add this one! Not only because it sold out fast, but because it was one of the best concerts so far.

The whole show was filmed by SVT and is said to be available on TV around Christmas time. PG & Co. were in fab shape and great mood. Totally cool for the filming! And the audience gave their best during the whole evening. They were clapping and singing along to most of the songs and it was lovely to hear their applause when a song started and they realized which one is that.

Make sure you don’t miss out on the time lapse video recorded by Anders Roos about building the stage HERE. It’s amazing to see how it’s all done and what professional work the crew and staff do to make everything work for the concerts.

Per stood up more times than he generally does during these unplugged concerts, e.g. during Flickan i en Cole Porter-sång he stood up checking on the crowd. The stories in between the songs were the same as usual, but there were a couple of improvised jokes. O’boy had its „promo” last night too and Per’s capo adventures also got back. I’m wondering how many of these talks will appear on TV in the end. Usually it’s a 1-hour-long program or maximum 1.5, but it would definitely be nice to see the whole thing. So if not the whole gig appears on SVT, we are always happy to have a DVD with the complete show. Just saying! Haha. Anyway, it’s unbelievable how many cameras, cables and other strange technical stuff are needed for such a recording. No wonder the end result is always so professional. Looking very much forward to it!

The encores were fantastic. The crowd stood up before the first encore and was cheering and clapping until the guys and girl came back on stage. Before the second encore everyone was again up on their feet. Vid hennes sida was a sitting song, but for Sommartider we immediately stood up. Big party song with a neverending applause after. Thanks, Magnus! For När alla vännerna gått hem everyone sat down, but the gig ended with a standing ovation, of course.

Next stop is Helsingborg on 6th May!

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:

Tack Karlskrona för en fantastisk torsdag. Vilken underbar publik ni är. Supertacksam att fått spela + sjunga för er här ikväll och känna denna härliga respons. Vi hade SvT med oss ikväll som bandade alltihop så med lite flyt så kan ni se o höra allt igen i jul nångång. Life’s good! Tack + syns igen. Badabam från PG.

Per Gessle in Lars Winnerbäck’s documentary

I already posted about it in August 2017 that a documentary about Lars Winnerbäck was to be premiered in autumn 2017. Many years passed and I totally forgot about it, but now I had the chance to watch it on SVT. Why I write a little about it is because Per Gessle also appears and talks in Winnerbäck – Ett slags liv (Winnerbäck – A Kind of Life). The docu marks 20 years of Lasse’s career and it includes interviews and concert footage.

The whole film is worth watching, but now I will of course only highlight the interview parts with Per. HERE you can watch the docu, however, it’s available only in Sweden.

Before I get down to the summary I have to mention that Lars’ name for sure rings a bell to all PG fans also outside Sweden because of their duet, Småstadsprat released on Per’s En vacker natt album in 2017. Lars also joined Mr. G & Co. on stage during Per’s En vacker kväll tour in 2017 in two cities – Per’s hometown, Halmstad and Lasse’s hometown, Linköping. They performed Småstadsprat and Honung och guld together.

In the docu Lars tells Per that when he was young, his best friend had a summer house in Strömstad. They had a little guest cottage where they could be alone. They snuck down to the beach and listened to Gyllene Tider. Per thinks it’s fantastic.

Lasse tells he started writing songs when he was 8-9 years old and he was singing some kind of own melodies. Per asks him if he could play any instruments back then. Lars says he couldn’t, but he learned it. He started playing the guitar when he was 9 years old, so when he was 10 he could compose a little on his own. Per tells he started writing extremely bad poems when he was 12-13 years old, but everything changed when the punk era came in 1976. Then he was 17 and he was writing in Swedish, because he was bad at English. However, the first stuff he wrote was in English, but it was easier to express himself in Swedish. Lasse says he could only speak Swedish, so for him it was obvious to write in Swedish. He admits he is still very bad at English. Per asks him if he ever tried to write in English or tried to translate his songs into English. Lasse says he never felt he could. He thinks his „songs would be difficult to be translated, because they are really…” Per completes the sentence: „… long!” They laugh. Lasse says yes, they are really long and it would take much time.

Lars is curious if Per thinks about the audience when he is writing. Per tells he can’t really say that, but he knows that when it feels like a song has a strong chorus or there is a hook in the song which is attractive to him, then it will be attractive to the masses as well. Lars says he writes mostly for himself, but knowing that people will listen to it motivates him. Per tells it’s not like a diary you write for yourself, it shouldn’t stay there. You know that it will go out. PG also tells that the coolest thing is when people come and say that your song means something to them.

Lars wants to know if Per thinks fame is in the way of artistry. Per says the short answer is no. He thinks it’s part of the game. There is a romance in rock and pop that you get rid of. Per thinks it was damn fun to be a pop star, but that was not the main focus. Gyllene Tider’s breakthrough came very early. They did six gigs before they became No.1 in Sweden. Suddenly, there were 13-year-old girls in the audience and them five in GT didn’t understand a thing. Lars asks if it was fun or rather just tough. Per says it was fantastic, because a whole new world opened. Lasse says Per never had time to think about the breakthrough. For him it was the opposite. He can’t remember when he broke through and it was probably good for him that it went little by little. It’s just that the process was longer this way. For years Lars thought it was hard to enjoy and cope with the fact that people recognize him. He doesn’t think he would have made it if it happens faster. Per tells it became a bit more difficult when he got older and the whole thing spread to the family: siblings, mother, child. Everyone is involved in this celebrity circus. You have to deal with it. For Per it was never a problem. Lasse says he had incredible problems with it, which now seems to be stupid, because now he knows how to cope with it or ignore it. He thinks it makes you feel you are observed all the time. Per asks if it becomes a paranoia. Lasse says it does. PG tells he never felt like that. He says there is that element of always being judged and that you have to take the consequences of your actions. Lasse says that might still be a problem, always being judged. But earlier he also had problems with reviewers and reviews. It was tough. Per tells you have to learn that you can never win. If you dig into what everyone thinks of you, you will go crazy. Lasse says that’s what he did.

It’s interesting to see Per in this „role”. I mean there are two great musicians chatting, paying full attention to each other. Both of them broke through, but in very different ways. One was already writing songs when the other was born and the more experienced he is, he appears a bit like a mentor giving advice and hints on songwriting or how to deal with fame. Nice!

Stills are from the docu.

Per Gessle and Roxette in Save Tonight – Swedish hits from the video era

Save Tonight – svenska hits från videoeran (Save Tonight – Swedish hits from the video era) is a music program on SVT. It is produced by the people behind En kväll för Marie Fredriksson, På spåret, Det svenska popundret and Hitlåtens historia, so there is a guarantee for a high quality series. Tonight, 25th September 2021 it’s the premiere of the program and it’s planned to be an annual TV show.

The essence of the program is to pay homage to great musical eras from the last century with live music, interviews and features. It’s the 40th anniversary of MTV music channel broadcasting its first program in 1981, when a new window was opened to the world for people interested in music.

A number of great artists cooperated in Save Tonight – svenska hits från videoeran, Per Gessle is one of them. There is a short interview with Mr. G about Roxette’s videos. This part starts at 46:41 and lasts till 49:29.

Program leader Josefine Jinder tells Per Gessle knew how to write hit after hit, but knew nothing about how to make music videos. So when MTV popped up, he took it as a big, but fun challenge.

Mr. G tells before MTV it was dry. The videos fit Roxette perfectly. They were young and interested in the video format. They thought it was an extension of their pop language. Per thinks it was cool to make videos e.g. to The Look and Dressed For Success, which they made at the same time in New York. He says it was awesome to work together with stylists and choreographers, so you could make more of your song. You quickly realized that you have to have a good video and so it quite quickly escalated the budget. If you are international, you have to work with an international budget and it was extremely lot of money they invested in music videos. Mr. G thinks that big part of their success is due to their cool videos, e.g. Fading Like A Flower in Stockholm City Hall or Listen To Your Heart on Öland. Per laughs and tells that everyone in the US thought that they built the ruins for the video’s sake. Actually, Marie was most often the front figure and Per rather had to strike tough poses and ”power chords”. It was fun, they loved making videos.

Jonas Åkerlund also talks on the program from 1:03:39, mainly about videos in general and the contradictions in the briefs of record labels for doing something cool and shocking that one could have never seen before, but at the same time taking care of not going to an extreme when a video can be censored, because then no one will see it. He says videos became fun again when YouTube appeared.

You can already watch Save Tonight – svenska hits från videoeran on SVT Play (if you are in Sweden) or watch it on SVT1 at 20:00 CET tonight.

Stills are from the program.

Per Gessle on SVT’s cultural news

Kulturnyheterna on SVT did a report on the current releases of Per Gessle and Roxette. They asked Per about his new single, Ömhet and his upcoming album, Gammal kärlek rostar aldrig, as well as Bag of Trix – Music from the Roxette Vaults. The report starts at 8:30 into the program. Watch it HERE!

Kulturnyheterna starts with an old report and shows it to Per who smiles at his young self. He says it’s from the period before Roxette and that was a bit fuzzy time for him. Gyllene Tider has just ended and he made a solo album that wasn’t especially successful. Some of the songs on Gammal kärlek rostar aldrig were written during that time. The album is out on 6th November. Mr. G tells he tried 60-70 songs and chose the ones that felt relevant and he did a minimalist production. It’s acoustic guitar, piano and a little bass.

Regarding Bag of Trix, Per says it’s a collection of so far unreleased Roxette materials, a lot of demos, some acoustic recordings from Abbey Road Studios, London, which are ”one takes”, they played those live. Marie is fantastic on those recordings, she loved them a lot.

Let Your Heart Dance With Me was the last recording Marie and Per did together in 2016, but it wasn’t released back then. Per tells, when Marie sings ”dance with me, let your heart dance with me”, it’s fantastic. Earlier that was a verse, now it’s a statement.

Mr. G says he was quite prepared for Marie’s passing away, she was ill for so long. But it’s a different thing when it really happens. One can’t be prepared for that. There is emptiness. You miss the relationship, to be able to call her, talk to her, fight with her and laugh with her.

Stills are from the report.

Thanx for the hint regarding the TV program, Angelica Stålnacke!

Per Gessle interview on Sverige! on SVT

An interview with Per Gessle is to be broadcast on SVT tomorrow at 19:00, but it’s already available online on SVT Play. Program leader of Sverige!, Fredrik Önnevall talked to Per last week in Malmö. The program starts with a few seconds teaser, then the real deal is 7:22 into. Watch HERE!

Fredrik introduces Per’s career summary, showing footage from the past and tells Mr. G is releasing a new album where he looks back on his 44 years of songwriting career. Then the interview starts.

Fredrik asks Per how come he spent his summer with looking back on his music archives. Per says these days you spend a lot of time at home, there is no travelling. Somewhere around Easter he started to get eager to play, so he thought he records something acoustic and tries to play as many instruments as possible himself. Then he thought, shit, he doesn’t have any songs, but then he realized there are a lot of songs from back in time. So he went through his archives, songs he wrote since the early 80’s. He found many songs he still likes and were clumsily recorded or songs he wrote for others, e.g. Segla på ett moln for Anne-Lie Rydé or I din hand for Svante Thuresson. Those he never recorded and so he tested a lot of them. It became some quite nice months in the studio.

Fredrik asks if the songs were available on old reels. Per says they were mainly on cassettes. Mr. G realized that he has been writing songs since 44 years and that’s a long time. Fredrik says Per recorded a lot of songs in the beginning of the 80’s, when he was 20+ years old. Now he is 60+ and Fredrik is interested in how it is to sing those songs now, if Per still approves of the lyrics. Per says he rewrote some of them, because the expressions were a bit clumsy and it’s also important that the texts must be relevant still. Certain old songs have the feeling that feels good, so it was just about to make them maybe a bit more simple. The album is acoustic based, so he tried to make it as minimalist as possible.

Fredrik says it’s not only music from the past, but there are newly written songs. In May Per wrote Mamma and Pappa. Per’s father died when he was 19, in 1978. The day he died, Gyllene Tider broke through. That was the day when the first article about GT was written in Expressen by Mats Olsson. It was a strange feeling. The end of something and the beginning of something else.

Fredrik says many in Per’s surroundings, in his family passed away during the past years: his mother, his brother, his sister. Per says those were hard times and you’ll probably never understand that. It’s always difficult when something ends. It was the same with Marie when she passed away in December last year. She was sick for such a long time and you would think you kind of prepared for that, but when it happens, it’s still very hard to deal with it. Fredrik asks in what way Per reacted differently than he thought. Per says it’s mainly the feeling that Maire is not there anymore. You can’t call her or meet her. It’s an emptiness that changes you. Maybe not overnight, but it becomes a different life.

Fredrik asks what Per misses the most about Marie. He misses their relationship, their friendship and all they went through. They did a fantastic journey together. He misses to talk about that with her and to plan new things with her. So he misses her as a good friend. He knew Marie since 1978-79 when they shared rehearsal studio, Marie with her own band, Per with Gyllene Tider. So it’s a very long friendship that suddenly ended. It’s tough.

Fredrik asks what Per thinks was about the chemistry between them why it worked so well. Per says it’s many things. They both came from small towns and they were pretty much similar. Both of them were ambitious and had the same type of humor. At the same time, they were quite different. They were good at different things. And that made 1+1 = 3. Marie sang much better than Per, Per was more interested in music industry and how it worked. Marie could make the songs immensely much better than they actually were, because she made them her own. It Must Have Been Love, Listen To Your Heart or Queen Of Rain for example. She made them her own, you believed her and it’s a great quality to have as an artist.

Fredrik mentions Roxette also releases new music and is curious about how it is possible. Per says they release a collection, Bag Of Trix which consists of unreleased songs, bonus tracks that were released on e.g. a CD single in Japan or a strange mix from the US. For example, Joyride became No. 1 in the US, but the radios play a different version in the US than what was released in Sweden and that US version was never released in Sweden.

Fredrik says there is a new video to one of the new songs. Per says his wife recorded most of what can bee seen in the video. Those days you had a real camera with you, nowadays it’s much easier. It’s much fun to see those recordings. They were travelling around the world for appr. 8 years. That was the golden era in Roxette’s history between 1988 and 1995. Fredrik asks how far it feels for Per now. Mr. G says it feels like it was a long time ago, but at the same time, it doesn’t feel like another person. He is still in that and is still touring all the time. He is reminded of Roxette all the time, many fans are still there. Fredrik asks if Per remembers all the happenings in the video. Mr. G says no, but he remembers when they had that giant fence and gave autographs through it. It was crazy. They had police escort and they had to run all the time. They were there around the whole world, but they didn’t see anything, because they were at the concert, then locked in the hotel room, then at the airport and off to another country. Fredrik asks if there is anything Per misses from those days. Per says he misses it all, it was a fantastic journey. He wouldn’t want to undo that. He would love to do that again, but in a different way.

Fredrik says Per always had the same people around him during his career and asks why is that. Mr. G says he likes long relationships. He says he’s been married since two thousand years, it feels like that now. Haha. He still works with Clarence Öfwerman, Roxette’s first producer, Marie since the 70’s, Gyllene Tider is also an old band.

Per’s home is still in Halmstad. He says you breathe in a different way in Halmstad. He is a small town guy. Fredrik asks how it is when Per Gessle goes out in Halmstad. Per says that’s fine, but of course he is more alert in Halmstad than in any other place. Sometimes it’s like a small event when he fuels his car or shops at ICA or goes to the pharmacy. People are very nice, there is never anything negative. Mr. G says people praise you the whole time and that gives an ego boost. Sometimes he just sits in the car and drives around Halmstad and look how things have changed. He drives around his old area where he grew up near Folkparken, his old schools, Örjans vall. It’s probably a sign of getting old, but he also often collects ideas for his texts. He wants to go back to that, write about it and color it for himself.

Fredrik asks what the word ”safety” means to Per. Mr. G says he needs substance all the time. He doesn’t like to jump around, he is a little ”late blooomer” in everything. He digs deep into things and that’s how he becomes good at them. He can do a very few things, but what he can do, he is pretty good at. It’s typically him.

Fredrik asks how many songs are lying around on old demo tapes. Per says there is a lot of unreleased stuff, but there is also crap stuff. The other day he found an old folder of texts and text ideas from the late 70’s. It’s from the time when GT’s first album was written. It was depressingly lousy. Haha.

Fredrik thanks for the interview.

 

 

Stills are from the program.