You are already planning your trip to Anderstorp in August and you want to know who else will be there? Join the “I’ll be there – Roxette in Anderstorp 08/14/10” group on Facebook. Let’s share our feelings, plans and hopes for this special night.
Kiwein
More info about the Anderstorp gig
(UPDATED, 16.21 CET): According to biljettnu.se the audience will be allowed to enter the event area at 17.00 CET (which either means we’re talking about two different stages or a re-organization of the so far known schedule for this day):
So, we have two different kinds of tickets – concert-only tickets for 650 SEK which can be bought at biljettnu.se and 3-days-race-tickets including the concert for 850 SEK which can be purchased at theracelegends.com
Then we have a schedule with the stage program starting at noon. Until now many of us didn’t know and wondered how the entrance will be done since the owners of a 3-days-race-ticket can of course join the stage program starting at noon which is also included in the ticket. So as far as I know a lot of fans already bought the full package for 850 SEK just to be sure to stand the closest to the stage.
Thanks to Yana who sent a mail to the CEO we now know that everyone – no matter which ticket for the concert you have – has the same chances to reach the front row:
There will only be one type of ticket to the Roxette concert, regardless of if you have race ticket or a concert ticket.
The stage is located in the event area and there will only be standing tickets. No special tickets for close to the stage are available.
Both those who have a race ticket and those who have a concert ticket only will be forwarded in to the stage area at the same time.
So, the questions change from “how and when do we get in?” to “How does this work when there’s actually artists on stage performing before 17.00? Are there two stages, more entrances? And how do those with the 3-days-ticket get in to enjoy the stage program during the day?
Happiness, excitement and a lot of confusion
Wasn’t this a great week? Of course – all of us knew that Roxette would come back this year. But who expected a nearly full length concert this summer? I didn’t and I know that many others didn’t either. It feels so great that Per and Marie still have the power to surprise us again and again. So after some deep breaths we felt the happiness take over – followed by excitement and certainly getting out our filofax, iPhone or Palm (whatever) to see if we can attend the show at all. Place: Something in the middle of nowhere which makes it perfect I think, time: Summer. What more do we need? Yes, tickets. Thinking of tickets the confusion began..
1.) Some people found out that Biljettnu.se seems to be selling tickets for what they call the Roxette concert from Monday on – when I visited the site for the first time they offered tickets for a “Golden Circle” for 950 SEK and “normal” standing tickets for 550 SEK. From what I heard the tickets aren’t fake but too expensive. Biljettnu.se is a ticket reseller, which means they buy tickets from the organizers and sell them for a higher price. So what they are going to do is most probably buying tickets for the race which allow you to join the concert as well. In the meantime – after Roxetteblog.com called the CEO of the event – the prices have disappeared from the Biljettnu.se website.
2.) The CEO made clear that a small number of concert tickets will be sold on their website theracelegends.com and ONLY there. We don’t know the price yet, we don’t know when the sale starts and we don’t know exactly how many tickets will be available, but it’s approx. 1,000-2,000 tickets.
3.) Capacity: The newspapers reported that 45,000 people attend the concert, which seems to be in contradiction to Per Gessle’s words on Facebook and Twitter, who said that the concert is only for about 8,000-10,000 people. According to information on The Race Legends, the concert is for 45,000 and everyone who has a ticket for the race can attend the concert as well.
So, to clarify it at least a bit, with info we have for now.
– If you want to buy tickets which include entrance to the Race the 3 days, head to theracelegends.com and buy one of the race tickets starting at 800 SEK. Concert is included.
– If you want to risk it, go ahead and buy tickets on biljettnu.se from Monday on, we however cannot tell you what kind of tickets they are reselling. Besides that, they seem to be more expensive. You will probably end up paying more than directly at The Race Legends. Again, it’s at your own risk.
– Tickets for the concert only will be on sale via TheRaceLegends.com in short, but we don’t know when the sale starts yet. According to The Daily Roxette, ticnet.se will also be involved in selling tickets.
(UPDATE, 30/01, 12.02 pm): biljettnu.se added a price again. Now they sell a concert-only-ticket for 605 SEK, sent as a pdf file.
Disappointing NOTP radio broadcasts in Germany
Looking forward to the radio broadcasts of the NOTP shows of several German radio stations I listened to Bayern 3, WDR 2 and SWR 1 so far. After having spent three nights in front of the PC listening to the programmes the result is just disappointing:
Only Bayern 3 was able to bring us a “new” recording with “Wish I could fly” and “Joyride” from Munich. On some special they even played “It must have been love” AND interviewed Christoffer Lundquist and Clarence Öfwerman and played “The Look” from Munich, too. Unfortunately, the only thing that annoyed me on this show was the host who talked about Marie as a woman with silver hair. He reacted to emails very quick and admitted that he used some stuff from the CD and recordings from Antwerp/Rotterdam as well. But in the end – this was the best radio special about NOTP in Germany so far.
The next to come was the special on WDR2. They even splitted the NOTP broadcast in two parts on two nights, so I thought we were supposed to get some new stuff. In the end, they played “The Look” and “Listen to your heart” from of the official NOTP CD and “Joyride”, which most probably came from Rotterdam or Munich and was nothing new to us. The host said that Marie looks “static” on stage and that she hasn’t fully recovered yet – well, there is nothing MORE to recover for her. She will stay like that – I think. Of course, we all would be happy if it wasn’t, who knows. In fact the host thought she isn’t in the best of health and said it. In the end – no new recordings here, too.
SWR1 played “Wish I could fly” – which would have been nice to know, because they didn’t play it in the official NOTP hours but BEFORE the show started. Well, in the end there is nothing to be angry about because they also didn’t offer anything new but played the already known version from Munich. When the show started I was happy because they played live stuff which wasn’t on the CD, but now I think it also was the Munich stuff. Looking forward to Roxette the next disapppointment came immediately. Again: No new version of “The Look” and “It must have been love”, but another time from the CD.
Compared to what the Belgium and Dutch channels offered so far this is just really disappointing. But in the end the Belgian/Dutch shows were better as well. So it fits..
Looking to the future… the far away future… well, there will be a TV show about this year’s Proms on Deluxe Music around EASTER. A bit late, eller hur?
Full list:
The Look, Interview, It must have been love, Wish I could fly (from Munich)
Listen to your heart and The Look (from CD)
Joyride (from wherever..)
Thumbs up to Bayern 3, a big Boooh to WDR2 and SWR1 (although the SWR1 host was much nicer and seemed to know all the relevant facts about Marie)
NOTP tour: A review, part I: Belgium/The Netherlands
After I have seen 14 shows of this hilarious Night of the Proms tour it’s time to write a review about the last eight weeks, starting with my first show on October 23rd in Antwerp, Belgium. It is not only colder outside but also warmer inside of me. I am feeling exhausted, empty and happy at the same time. I don’t feel like writing at all, but with writing everything down I can share my experiences with all of you. Not only the performances changed during these last weeks – especially Roxette’s – but also my point of view has changed a lot. I got a lot more relaxed, especially during the last shows and seeing so many shows helped me to really get the Night of the Proms feeling itself. If I had to choose which show was the best I would certainly pick the second Frankfurt show, not only because of the balloons. But altogether if someone asked me to choose from the Belgium/Dutch or German shows I’d always pick Belgium/Netherlands, maybe I’d even pick Antwerpen. The Belgian shows were extremely good and the audience was much more into it than the German audience which seems to be a bit too old to have a party.. ! So if you want to see a Night of the Proms show next year or whenever, go to Antwerpen. You will love it. My review starts with the five Belgian/Dutch shows I have seen (and drove more than 2500 km):
Antwerpen, October 23rd, 2009
210 km to Düsseldorf, another 230 km to Antwerpen = 440 km
We arrived early since we wanted to have some time for shopping. Well – the city isn’t what you call beautiful so it wasn’t worth it at all. At the Sportpaleis we meet some fans who are already waiting for the doors to open. I remember a Brazil guy, Ivan and some Russians. Well – if you know who you are leave a comment here so I can add your names. Unfortunately all we got were seating tickets, faaaar away from the stage. Unfortunately not far away enough to not notice Marie’s problems during Wish I could fly. Sharon den Adel rocked the house before Roxette and I really liked the Belgian audience. On this first show Marie and Per appear on stage together – out of the blue, practically speaking. While Per just has to make one step Marie has to find her way to the microphone. Seeing this my first thought is: “Hmm, why did she agree to do it like this?” She can barely see something and has problems to walk over. It’s obvious. Wish I could fly starts and I am really nervous. Marie sings “Halfway through the night” three times in a row and I feel totally sorry for her. Nothing I can do from that far off. All I can do is hope that she doesn’t care and she really sings the rest of the song quite ok. My friend and I are worried about her in the break but she proves us wrong. She totally rocks her socks off during the second set. She’s great on The Look and Joyride and she sings so good on It must have been love and Listen to your heart. Yet – I feel like I need to support her. Unfortunately we have to go back to Düsseldorf in the night and arrive late (or early) at 3 am. We could have been there earliert but we waited for Roxette at the backstage entrance and I was really happy that Per decided to come to us after the show. We were not many, maybe around 10. He told us that Marie has a sore throat and doesn’t feel well. He signs stuff, everyone gets a photo and we chat a bit. When he left (with the words: “We’re here tomorrow. Same songs, different lyrics”, I won’t ever forget it, haha) everybody was happy. We didn’t even notice that Marie passed by while we were talking with Per. So, arriving in Düsseldorf I decided to go back to Antwerp the next day. Not to let me entertain. No, just to support Marie. I didn’t even have a ticket and I just drove 230 km without knowing if I could get in in the end. Fortunately I could..
Antwerpen, October 24th, 2009
230 km from Düsseldorf to Antwerpen, 230 km back to Düsseldorf, another 210 km back home = 670 km
I was lucky! Evgeny already had tickets for Antwerp but couldn’t go because of his Visa problems. His friend Emil sold me Evgeny’s ticket. If I didn’t say thank you until now: Thank you! So I didn’t have to worry about a ticket. My friend couldn’t join me so I was alone this time – just to meet some friends in Antwerpen. I arrived early (14.00) and only a few people were there. Since I had a standing ticket for this night I knew everything would be more exciting than the night before. And since there was a huge catwalk in Belgium and The Netherlands we even had to decide whether to stand on the left or the right. Usually the left side was always Marie’s and the right side Per’s. Soon a lot of people stood on the left of the entrance so we decided to try it on the right. Good choice – we made it to the front row and could stand next to each other and in the end it turned out that there’s no left or right anymore. Both standing quite in the middle of the stage everybody could see Per AND Marie, left or right – it didn’t matter (except one wanted to catch Per’s guitar picks). My decision to come back was the right to make. Again – on Wish I could fly both appeared together and Marie had to make another 10 steps to the mic, this not working at all. Again – she had problems with the text but everyone around including me screamed and sang with her, helped her through this song and we showed our support with all we had. During the ballads I kind of had the feeling that she was looking for help in the audience. She looked at us all the time, it was like she was trying to read the text from our lips. Well, we did our best. Even worse – her voice was just not there. We felt so sorry for her. She must have been totally ill that night but we could see she was fighting like hell and we loved her even more for this. Still – I couldn’t stop worrying and I couldn’t enjoy the Roxette performance at all. This was the worst of all 14 shows I have seen. I fellt sorry for Marie and hoped the several thousand people in the Sportpaleis weren’t too disappointed, especially since I knew she can do much better and she proved it only some weeks later. Unfortunately the most videos on YouTube you find when you search Roxette and Night of the Proms are from this night. Bad luck… or Murphy’s law. Whatever you want to call it.
Arnhem, November 13th, 2009
600 km in total
This show didn’t turn up in my personal “schedule” until three days before the concert. Well – we decided to just go there to “have a look” and to give some presents to the band and Per – one of these being the Roxopoly game. Well – unfortunately I checked ebay right in time and found tickets for that night. Too cheap to not buy it (15 Euro) and we decided to join the show. But more important were our presents and we had no idea how to hand them over since we didn’t find a particular backstage entrance. I had luck again: my seat was next to the stage entrance for the artists and after the show was over I waited for the band and asked if they could come out to get some presents. They could – and it was damn relaxed that night. We were only around 5 fans, we had all the time in the world to talk and when I showed my Roxopoly to Christoffer he helped us to make Per come out so that I could give it to him directly. Well – the rest you see on the video on YouTube.
The show itself was much better than three weeks earlier. Marie’s voice was back, she looked a lot more confident on stage and she even improvised during The Look, bringing the Hey Jude “Na na na na” up for the first time. We loved it. The sound wasn’t very good, maybe because they divided the venue in two parts and the voices just vanished in the “empty” part of the venue. Who knows..! Hard to rate this show, wasn’t the best, wasn’t the worst. The audience was so-so, too. So in the end it was worth the trip because of our presents and just because of that road trip feeling – we love to drive hundreds of kilometres not knowing what will happen when we arrive. But the three of us were happy – both going and coming back home: saturday morning around 4 am.