Got tickets for a Roxette concert? Read carefully..

It’s crazy – at least for a fan like I am – how there are still people on this planet who don’t know about the illness Marie Fredriksson (lead singer/Roxette) suffered from, just recently I experienced that on Twitter, during the Auckland show. Yes, she had a brain tumour. And yes, she is healthy again. She had to fight a lot for several years, but she made it and she did even though she only had a 5% chance to survive. And now she feels good enough to perform again. Roxette just kicked off their second world tour since 2011. And no, her condition isn’t serious. So in case you got tickets for a Roxette show for the upcoming world tour, please take some advices:

bild-179-e14234933342681.) Don’t wonder about Marie not walking, dancing and jumping around the stage – she simply can’t. She suffers from long term effects which include problems with her right leg (yes, it might be that she struggles with it and touches it all the time), she can’t see properly on her right eye and has problems hearing with her right ear. She has problems walking due to the effects the tumour had on her body.

2.) In case Marie sings wrong lyrics or none at all – don’t worry. It’s only a line or two, she’s back faster than you can think about the correct lyrics yourself. Just let her sing what she wants to. She’s a survivor, a hero, true inspiration for everyone who is seriously ill.

3.) Don’t say that she shouldn’t be on stage in a condition “like that”. She is healthy, really. She is totally fine and all she ever wanted to do and wants to and probably always will want to do is being on stage, perform, sing for and with her fans, enjoy the audience’s response and be what she is: a performer. You have no right to say that she should stay at home, because being on stage is what makes her happy. You can clearly see that in her eyes.

4.) Don’t tell your friends that she looks much older than she is. She’s through a lot lot lot and you wouldn’t look much better if you had survived a 5% survival chance illness. You know – she had to learn reading, counting and TALKING again – not to mention singing. Just show some respect.

How you show her respect?

– Put away your smartphone, don’t wonder about her, don’t worry about her, just ENJOY the show, SING ALONG with her and most of all: show her that you are there for her, your full support and affection.

– Sing as loud as you can, shout her name and make the people around you do the same. Simple as that!

If you can’t, there is another option: If you only have negative things to say, say nothing at all.

Photo: Kirsten Ohlwein

Roxette LIVE – Travelling The World

I never thought I would buy something what is able to play a Blu-ray because of Roxette and not because of my fave actors. I also never thought I would buy it earlier than an LP player… But it just happened. And it was all worth it. Actually, the long long long long long waiting for the DVD / Blu-ray / CD was worth it, too.

As per the Blu-ray, I like how it looks like. I mean not the front cover, but how it is structured, the way the CD and the Blu-ray disc are placed in the case. Well, too bad that all the DVDs and Blu-rays seem to be produced in Germany (or at least most of them), since now we are all having this unnecessary and not too sexy stamp on the front cover. When I first saw it, I hoped it was a sticker which I could easily remove, but unfortunately, it’s printed as part of the design…

blu-ray_00_  blu-ray_01_

I started with watching the Gessle cam stuff & the guitar tech’s secret life from the Blu-ray as I thought most of the other 2 parts I already saw on TV last year.

The Gessle cam videos are still fun. What I like the most is that on the Blu-ray they, of course, have much higher quality than what we can see on Facebook. Even if you already saw most of them (yes, there ARE new ones), you can smile and laugh at what the guys & ladies are doing in the studio or backstage. Per was wrong when he corrected us that the ”So, Christoffer?” part is not 3 minutes, but 30. It’s really ”only” 3 minutes, but it’s a hilarious mix! 🙂

Then comes 12 minutes of ”Studio Work” from the recordings of ”Travelling”, the album. Scenes are from AGM and Atlantis studios with Clarence, Christoffer, Magnus, Pelle, Marie and Helena. Oh, and of course, Per. But you can mainly hear his voice and see him not too often. We got used to this during all these years.

The 3rd Gessle cam video, ”Travelling” is the longest, almost 30 minutes. It’s from several countries: backstage, soundcheck, food, some ”Jesus loves you!” and some more ”So, Christoffer?”, Clarence & Pelle & Magnus ice skating, band, Marie & Per, crew, etc.

The 4th extra is a 5-minute-long video of ”Mikael Nogueira-Svensson – The secret life of a guitar tech”. Micke N-S took care of the gear of Per, Pelle and Magnus during the tour. He’s talking about his job and shows interesting things backstage, like the Blue Swede Sex Machine is having problems all the time. He says he’s like a nanny for the musicians. 🙂 While talking, he is restringing a guitar.

Roxette_It_All_Begins_Where_It_Ends

 

 

After these videos I watched the documentary, ”It All Begins Where It Ends – The Incredible Story Of Roxette”. Most of it we could already see last year, but finally, Helena and Dea got their well-deserved part in the docu. Actually, this is the only difference I could notice. And it’s great as it is. No changes were needed besides the backing vocalists’ part. Oh, yes! Another important change is the subtitles. The English subtitles work well.

 

 

 

Roxette_COYH

 

”Roxette LIVE – Travelling The World” I saved for last. Chris did an awesome job with the live mix, but we already said that when we saw it on TV. At the same time, I still get dizzy from the constant cuts and I thought a year should have been enough to change them, but Favela kept them as we saw it in the TV cut of the live stuff. No clue why. Whatever. Crowd scenes are still mixed, but at least those confusing titles with mentioning cities and countries are gone. There are now more relevant scenes between the songs than what we saw on TV: backstage moments, fans running to the front row, the drum kit getting dressed for success, etc. Besides these, now it’s more like a real complete show. Awesome to see those 9 songs too, which were not in the TV cut, but made it to the DVD. This way we can enjoy e.g. Marie’s touching performance of ”Perfect Day”, some more of Per’s left leg dance in ”How Do You Do!” and their lovely moments in ”Things Will Never Be The Same”. Richard Gere and Julia Roberts are cut out from the final ”It Must Have Been Love” part, however, Marie and Per are still cut in from the video clip twice. But that’s fine. Getting this front row feeling and reliving the moments of the tour, one starts / continues longing for a new tour.

 

Last but not least, I love having the songs on a live CD, too. Some fans hear Marie from far away or have other problems with the sound on the CD, but my ears are not too sharp for that I assume, since I’m fine with the sound itself. One funny thing is that the preview pic of the live CD is not the final cover, but another sleeve we saw when we were guessing which the final design could be. If I have to choose between the physical release and the digital one, I go for the digital because of having ”Silver Blue” and ”Church Of Your Heart” as bonus tracks there.

All in all, if you ask me what took a year to release this material after we could see most of it already in December 2012, I’m not sure I could tell you. Maybe choosing what to include in the extras from the tremendous amount of Gessle cam videos was a bit time-consuming or doing the subtitles. No clue. But it doesn’t really matter now that it’s in my hands and I could watch it and listen to it. I could do it 24/7. More than that, I want a Roxette tour! NOW!

 

Songs on the new Roxette DVD / Blu-ray and live CD

Last week we already informed you about the content of the upcoming Roxette DVD / Blu-ray and Per added his comments on it regarding what the DVD and the Blu-ray really contain.

Now the lists of songs are also published on a Bulgarian website (Radio N-JOY) both for the live part of the DVD and the live CD. The text says the DVD presents a complete live show including 90 minutes of the most inspiring and energetic performances on stage by Roxette, recorded in Curitiba in Brazil, Cordoba in Argentina and Santiago in Chile. They are not mentioning any other countries, so there might not be that much of a mix of the crowd scenes as in the TV cut. Not sure if the stage views are not only from Santiago as it was in the TV cut. At least, it gives us hope that constant cuts in the DVD version are also changed. We’ll see it when the DVD is out on 6th December, 2013.

Roxette – Live ‘Travelling the World’ 
Tracklist  (DVD + Blu-ray)

1. Dressed For Success
2. Sleeping In My Car
3. The Big L
4. Silver Blue
5. Stars
6. She’s Got Nothing On (But The Radio)
7. Perfect Day
8. Things Will Never Be The Same
9. It Must Have Been Love
10. It’s Possible
11. 7Twenty7
12. Fading Like A Flower
13. Crash! Boom! Bang!
14. How Do You Do!
15. Dangerous
16. Joyride
17. Spending My Time
18. The Look
19. Listen To Your Heart
20. Church Of Your Heart

 

Live CD
Roxette Live at Caupolican, Santiago, Chile May 5th 2012

1. Dressed For Success
2. Sleeping In My Car
3. The Big L
4. She’s Got Nothing On (But The Radio)
5. Perfect Day
6. It Must Have Been Love
7. It’s Possible
8. 7Twenty7
9. Fading Like A Flower
10. Crash Boom Bang!
11. How Do You Do!
12. Dangerous
13. Joyride
14. Spending My Time
15. The Look
16. Listen To Your Heart

Bonus tracks (will be available only digitally)

17. Silver Blue
18. Church of Your Heart

 

Regarding ”Silver Blue” as a bonus track the article says: ”fans’ favourite song for live performance all around the world, forcing Roxette to add it to the setlist”.

In one of our earlier posts on Facebook we shared a link Roxette Cafe found and there we could see the teaser for the docu and the cover of the docu part. Not sure if it’s still the real deal, as Per posted another pic as how the DVD cover will look like.

flyer-roxette-recto_lo_res                DVD-BLURAY _cover

 

Update at 14:30 CET, 1st November: this might be the real deal (however, the letters in the title are not put down in a straight line… hm… hm…). Cover pic shared by Orpheus Music in Bulgaria. Looks better than the one Per shared (I guess that one was a draft attached to the documents to get the certificate in Germany), but still not as energetic as the one shared by GAD. That cover pic is expressing more what the World Tour was about.

orpheus_music_travelling_DVD

Photo on the cover is from 24/07/2011, Slottsskogsvallen, Göteborg (Thanx, Roxette Cafe for letting us know.)

 

Update by Per regarding the cover – the one HE shared earlier:

Yes yes, this is the upcoming Dec 6 release of the DVD/BluRay. Lots of covers are floating around, I’m getting dizzy!

Thanx for finding the source of info and letting us know, Celestte Williams.

Content of the long-awaited Roxette DVD / Blu-ray

FSK (Freiwillige Selbstkontrolle der Filmwirtschaft = Voluntary Self Regulation of the Movie Industry), a German motion picture rating system organization run by the SPIO (Head Organisation of the Movie Industry) has published the release certificate of Roxette’s new DVD. It’s been approved to be released without age restriction.

According to the certificate, the title of the DVD is ”It All Begins Where It Ends – The Incredible Story Of Roxette”. Running time is 206 min 23 sec.

 

Table of contents:

Title Running time
It All Begins Where It Ends 61:41
Concert – Part 1 43:33
Concert – Part 2 51:37
Mikael Nogueira* 5:24
So, Christoffer 3:18
Studio 12:03
Travelling 28:47

*Micke N-S’s name is misspelled (Mikael Niguera) in the certificate, so no clue if the titles above are the final ones or just referring to the content of the different parts of the DVD.

 

Favela is the production company responsible for the documentary and the live part. You might remember our interview with them.

The documentary we saw on SVT last December was appr. 58 min long, so ”It All Begins Where It Ends” part might not be the very same as the TV version. However, this 3-4 min difference doesn’t necessarily mean it’s really different.

Concert 1-2: The live TV cut we saw on SVT in January was also appr. 58 min long and got a mixed critique even from fans. The constant cuts coming too fast after one another thus breaking the flow of the songs and mixing up places and crowd scenes were our main ”problems”. Now the live show is divided into 2 parts, 95 min 10 sec altogether. This means the concert film has been changed in a way and if we take out the talks on stage and the shoutings and clappings in the beginning and at the end of each concert, it really might be a complete show like Per wrote it in April. However, we are still wondering whether the cuts and mixing-ups have also been changed or just the length. Either way, we really hope for a full concert. C’mon, it was once (and still might be) the most important discussion on Earth! 😉

Micke N-S’s part might be a short interview or a backstage video with him or how he is handling Per’s gear and related. Or all these in 5 minutes.

3 minutes of ”So, Christoffer”. Hm. I’m wondering if it will be a megamix of ”So, Christoffer!”-s from different places. 🙂

Studio and Travelling can be a mix of Per’s iPhone videos and Favela’s shootings. We’ll see, but 40 minutes of these parts sounds promising.

 

Per informed all of us yesterday about the release date, which is 6th December – hopefully this year. 😉 We couldn’t bear any further delay. Now we also know that a live CD with 16 tracks is also included in the pack (not available separately) and 2 extra tracks we get on iTunes, Spotify, etc.

Roxette_It_All_Begins_Where_It_Ends

 

I hope your heart is in perfect condition, Jose. 😉

 

Update 1 by Per on 24th October:

Looks like the real deal to me. Except that loads and loads of “GessleCam”-goodies are also included on the BluRay-version! No space left on the DVD… /P.

 

Update 2 by Per on 24th October:

DVD/BluRay UPDATE: Just realised that the info from RoxBlog is not entirely correct. First of all, “So, Christoffer” is about 30 mins long (not 3 mins). The “Extras” that is “GessleCam, part 1-2-3” (So, Christoffer + Studio Work + Travelling) + MNS – The secret life of a guitar tech will only be available on the BluRay. Not on the DVD due to space limitations. /P.

 

Interview with Favela team: We are happy with the result

FavelaDo you remember when we asked you to send us your questions to the Favela production team responsible for the latest Roxette documentary and concert? So here’s the outcome…

About Favela:

Most of the fans haven’t heard about you until you started working with Roxette, however, Favela was founded in 2008. We know you have done a live broadcast from Kent’s release party in New York. Have you done any productions for other artists before? If yes, which ones?
We are a relatively small production company which works very widely but has a passion for music. Except the Kent production that you mentioned, music wise we have produced/directed for Sissel Kyrkjebö: Live at Dalhalla, Hellacopters: Live at Debaser, Glasvegas – “Shine like Stars”, Madrugada: Live at Spektrum Oslo. We have as well done live productions at Way Out West and Where the action is with Swedish artists such as The Hives and Mando Diao as well as international acts as Foo Fighters, Queens of Stoneage, Dirty Pretty Things and many more.

About working together with Roxette:

How did your cooperation with Roxette start? We know you were also responsible for two Roxette videos: “Way out” and “Speak to me”. Is this correct?
It all began with Mattias Holmer, now producer at Favela. He filmed Per Gessle’s Party Crasher Tour at Cirkus in Stockholm 2009. The idea started in his head the day Marie walked on stage. We started to talk about the project in the beginning of 2010. After that we have done the videos for “Way out” (partly shot during sound-check in South Africa) and “Speak to me” and two electronical press kits – for the Charm School and Travelling albums.

Read more