The look

Per Gessle at the Göteborg Book Fair – Chapter 2

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The second day for Per at the book fair was yesterday. The seminar he took part in started at 1 pm, but fans were already waiting for him since 10 am. We were continuously filling the rows and listened to all the authors who came before Per. One of the writers was funny, he told he was the book fair support act for Mr G.

PG_IMG_9879Per arrived with Miss Dimberg and Anders Roos at about 1 pm. PG already got stopped by fans who asked him to give them autographs even before the seminar. When Per got to sit on the stage before the conversation, he was drumming on his legs and whistling. He refused to use the microphone which they could have fixed on his head, but used a standard microphone.

Many-many people were curious about Per, but the stage area was so small that a lot of people couldn’t sit down. The seminar ended appr. 10 minutes earlier than planned, probably because they saw the signing session would last longer for that many people.

Per’s interviewer was Jan Gradvall. They talked about songwriting, specific songs, as well as rhymes. He talked about his childhood room, what posters were on the walls (e.g. Hep Stars), there was a gramophone player and there were also some Barbie dolls. The family moved a lot and e.g. in 1968 they lived in Simlångsdalen. Per said his best friend was pop music. ”Tragical, but true.” Watch the short video of this part of the interview HERE.

They talked about how productive and busy Per is. He is doing many projects at a time, but when one ends, he feels like: ”Tack, nästa projekt.”, looking forward to the next project. The archives are just the summary of one chapter in his life.

After the seminar, there was a signing session next to the stage. There were so many people queueing with the Per Gessle books in their hands. Unfortunately, the last 5-6 people were asked to go to the other signing place, at the Roos & Tegnér stand, because they were running out of time and the signing at the stand had to start at 2.30 pm, but there Per really took his time and draw a great amount of Leifs in many books and boxes.

Ah, there was one new info during the interview: the Roxette rehearsals start this week. Bring on the tour!

Thanx for all your time and for the fabulous weekend, Mr G!

PG_JG_IMG_9864  PG_signing_IMG_9911  PG_signing_IMG_9958

Per with Jan Gradvall at the seminar; Per signing the books next to the stage at the seminar place; Per signing the books at the Roos & Tegnér stand

All pics in the article © Patrícia Peres

 

P.S.: Seeing this post of Per on Roxette Official after the happenings at the book fair, you could feel he had a bit of inspiration. Good luck with The Look 2! 😉

Feel like writing something like this today! /P.

Australian media about Roxette’s tour: TV, radio and contest

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10172738_10152044402680178_3736147522337777958_nTour dates for Australia and New Zealand were announced this week and it seems Australians are very happy about the news! So here is a collection of what’s been going on this week on Australian media.

Newspapers have covered the news extensively, and are currently running a contest to win 10 double passes for each of the five Roxette concerts in Australia. You can find more details about the contest on News Corp Australia newspapers (state links: Daily Telegraph, The Advertiser, Herald Sun, Perth Now, Courier Mail).

And there were a few radio interviews with Per, like the one on KOFM 102.9 (see embedded audio below) radio or or Gold104.3 where Per revealed that he started writing new songs for Roxette some months ago and that they will get into the studio in August to record some new material and will start rehearsing in September. Per also explains he spends about 15-20 minutes a day updating Roxette’s Facebook page, and that he likes this kind of communication, “in the old days there was such a huge gap between you and the audience, nowadays you can interact with your fans in a total different way.” He also tells that he likes to know what fans think about this and that, “for me it’s pretty cool to find out what people are interested in, sometimes I ask people questions what they want to hear, and you get like 2000 answers, it’s fun to read.” Regarding Eurovision Song Contest 2014, Per thinks the winner song by Conchita Wurst’s “Rise Like a Phoenix” is a nice song, but he thinks the show is very long. Besides that, he wrote some songs for the Song Contest many years ago (without any big success).

[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/149624368″ params=”color=0066cc&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_artwork=true” width=”100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]

Australian TV also reported about the come back of Marie and Per to down under:

 

The Today Show

 

 

American based Candlelight Red covers “The Look”

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Hard Rock band Candlelight Red just finished up a video for their new single “She’s Got the Look,” a cover of Roxette’s “The Look”.

“She’s Got the Look” is the second single off The Wreckage, the video was shot in Stanley Kubrick’s family warehouse by indie video aficionado Alex de Campi. The video twists the song into a horror story of a lonely teen boy who dreams of finding a girl who ends up finding him, as well as featuring a performance by the band.

WATCH THE CLIP