Would it be fun to have Roxette concerts on USB stix?

We already informed you about Roxette’s one and only Norway concert in 2015 being sold out. When I was checking the organizer’s Facebook site, I saw an interesting thing. Roxette’s concert is on 13th June in Trondheim and Mark Knopfler plays there one day before them. This fact is not quite interesting, but I realized Mark Knopfler records all his shows and gives the fans the opportunity to purchase high-quality, live soundboard recordings of every show on a guitar-shaped USB stick or as mp3 / FLAC download. Digging deeper in this topic, many more artists are providing such a treat.

This USB stick doesn't exist. It's just an illustration.
This USB stick doesn’t exist. It’s just an illustration.

Wouldn’t it be cool to have the professional sound recordings of the concert(s) you attend during the XXX tour? Since Roxette play 100% live, each concert is very much different to the others, even if the setlist doesn’t change much or not at all from one concert to another. On one hand, all concerts are most probably recorded anyway, so it would be just a nice extra to copy them on some sticks and provide Roxers with the possibility to buy them. On the other hand, Chris wouldn’t have the chance to mix all concerts one by one since it would be simply too much and maybe the PERfectionists they are, it wouldn’t feel comfortable for them to release such sticks.

Either way, let’s play with the thought it’s possible. Let us know about your opinion!

 

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The tour goes on in 18 days! Either we get live recordings or not, we are looking very much forward to all 2015 shows and more!

 

Any Per Gessle birthday party today?

Another year passed and Mr. G became 20454 days old today. Wishing a splendido birthday to Per! The past year was again full of fun, joy and treats in many forms and most importantly, we got some more gorgeous & cool music from him. Cheers to another busy year!

Do you have any plans about how to celebrate Per’s birthday? You can choose more than 1 from the list below. If you choose ”Other”, we would be glad to read about your plans in a comment.

 

PG_1_year_20150112_rs
These photos in the collage were shared by Per during the past year at the uncountable number of Facebook pages he is handling. We are ready for even more pics until his next birthday, aren’t we?

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Roxette’s one and only concert in Norway is sold out

Roxette_TrondheimAs we already informed you about it in an earlier post of ours, tickets for the one and only Roxette concert in Norway in 2015 were selling like hot cakes. Tickets went on sale on 14th November and the next day we could read it in Norwegian newspapers that half of the total amount of tickets had been sold only in a few hours.

Today at 13:30 it was announced that only 237 tickets were left, then some hours later the operators of the Facebook page of Trondheim Concerts posted (also at the event’s Facebook page) that the Roxette concert is officially sold out. 10,000 people will see Roxette at Sverresborg Arena on 13th June! Woohoo! Congrats!

Those of you who wanted to see Roxette in Norway, but haven’t bought your tickets yet, now you may want to plan another option. HERE you can check the complete list of already announced dates.

 

Per Gessle on Swedish Radio about Kaj Kindvall

As we already informed you about it in an earlier article, Per could be heard on Swedish Radio P4 today.

During the first half an hour of the program Kajs spellista, Kaj Kindvall played some songs from the past he thinks still sound good today. Then came the interviews with several listeners, artists and colleagues. The interviews were done by Micke Cederberg who met Per for recording his thoughts on 6th December.

In the 2-minute-long interview with PG (starting at 1:05:19 at THIS link) he talked about his memories related to Kaj Kindvall and his programs and mentioned Kaj always had a significant role in his life as a radio host. At the time Per became an artist, Kaj was the host of Poporama (1974-1984), a radio program that was very important in Gyllene Tider’s history. Per talks about the story we could read I think in Att vara Per Gessle and could also hear it in older interviews that they, the guys from Gyllene Tider and their friends sent a lot of postcards to Kaj to ask him to play Flickorna på TV2 on the show. The only “mistake” they made was that all the postcards were sent from Halmstad, what Kaj saw and mentioned it on the radio, too. But they succeeded with that action after all. There is even a short cut of a call from those times when Kaj talks to Per on the phone about the song. Funny.

Per says Kaj’s other program, Tracks (1984-2011) also meant a lot to him as a solo artist, but also to Gyllene Tider and Roxette. Mr G mentions that Kaj has a really good radio voice that one can recognize immediately and he is a great host and one couldn’t miss any of his programs. Per wished him a nice life after retiring and not to forget to clean the dust off the gramophone every now and then.

PG_in_front_of_Swedish_Radio

PLECtionary update & CONTEST!

When we first got to see the 2014 editions of Per’s guitar picks on the producer’s Instagram account (pic 1, pic 2), we got very excited. They all look so hot ’n’ cool! Then the tour started and besides being extremely happy about seeing our most beloved band live again, we expected to see the new picks live, too. During the Russian leg of the tour fans were posting pictures of plectrums they could catch at the concerts and we could see that besides some new ones, most of the picks they could obtain were from 2012. We could think the amount produced of the new plecs was so few vs. Per’s pick-throwing habits that he ran out of those 2014 picks very fast. But it wasn’t the case.

You probably remember Per’s post on Roxette’s Facebook page some days ago. He shared the PLECtionary again, with this text:

A nice collection. But where are the pix from 2014????? /P.

Haha… Yeah… We’d been also wondering, because we saw a lot of 2014 picks appearing e.g. on Tradera, already before the tour started and we were quite sad about the fact that they ended up in traders’ hands, while we couldn’t see too many of them on Per’s mic stand on tour and he played even less of them.

The producer shared the info after we asked them and they saw the PLECtionary that the picks are quite exclusive, not too many of them were produced. That was also confirmed by Mr G and Micke N-S. 100 pieces were made of each 2014 picks, except for the Rox-Jet plec, of which 400 exist. Per already mentioned it in the guitar pick interview that they should slow down a bit and produce less picks for a tour. Now it seems they sticked to that idea of keeping the picks more exclusive.

There was another thing Per mentioned in the plectrum interview and this is how the actual update of the PLECtionary is possible. When talking about Sandra’s collection, he said:

She deserves the best. The best and the complete. I consider it a mission to help her find Plectrum-Nirvana.

2014-1_rs_SK
Photo by Sandra Knospe

And how awesome the way is how he is helping her! He sent the missing 2014 guitar picks to Sandra in a mail not much after he posted about the PLECtionary. Wow! I mean W.O.W.!

Santa Per or Gessle Claus, call him as you wish, he is the most fantastic and most fan-friendly artist in the whole wide world! And he really knows how to make the fans the happiest people in the universe. I can only confirm it.

I don’t even have to mention how Sandra was jumping of joy when she saw Per’s mail in her mailbox. She also wants to thank Mr G for the awesome gift, so here is a message from Sandra to Per:

A truly unexpected and special Xmas present!! What a treat!! Not only that I finally can add a set of these beauties to my collection, but also I’ve got lots of Xmas presents for my Rox-friends now. A big thanks to the generous and kind donator! Hallelujah! You rock, Per!

He ROX, indeed! And Sandra, too! Thanx a million for all your efforts and work with the updates again! We’re extremely happy for you and glad to see your collection is growing.

Since Per sent more picks to Sandra and let her share them with her Rox-friends, she also thought about giving a chance to a wider group of Roxers to get these rare picks. Huge thanx for offering them for a contest, Sandra!

Besides adding the 2014 picks (No. 86-91), the PLECtionary has also been updated with some info regarding quantities produced of picks where it is known and since the latest update, the misspelled, rare Woddy plec (No. 10) could also be added to Sandra’s collection.

Read the trivia from Sandra at the new picks to get to know why Per doesn’t really use those plectrums on tour! What will we see on the mic stand in 2015? Will there be a new production with the same designs or will there be some completely new layouts? Are there still so many 2012 picks left that Per will use them until he runs out of them? The answers are not known at this point. Let’s see what happens next year!

 

CONTEST!!! Here is your great chance to get hold of a ROX-JET / PER AIR HAIR – CAPTAIN GESSLE guitar pick (No. 91)! In order to participate, answer the following questions (correct answers are added next to the Qs on 3rd January):

  1. How many Rox world related guitar picks are there altogether in the PLECtionary at the moment? – 150 (143+7)
  2. How many different 2014 guitar picks were designed for the XXX anniversary tour? – 6
  3. What is written on the front and back of plec No. 10? (Please, spell it how you see it, otherwise we can’t accept your answer. 😉 ) – Text front: HEJ DIN TOK JAG ÄLSKAR DIG; Text back: WODDY

 

Send an e-mail with your name, address (so we can send the guitar pick in case you win) and the answers to the questions to rxbcontests@gmail.com until 23:59 CET on 2nd January 2015. The 10 lucky winners will be announced a few days later.

Good luck!

Contest terms and conditions:
– In order to participate, you have to send an e-mail to rxbcontests@gmail.com with your name, address and the answers to the 3 questions. We will consider all e-mails we receive until 23:59 CET on 2nd January 2015 with complete information.
– 10 winners will be picked randomly among those who have participated and sent the correct answers.
– You can only participate once, any attempt to participate twice will lead to your disqualification.
– Prizes won’t be paid out in cash. Prizes will be sent by standard mail only once (so basically, if the envelope gets lost, we won’t be able to send a replacement).
– Winners will be announced on this website, on our Facebook page and will also be notified per e-mail. You’ll be required to reply to the e-mail confirming your address.
– Roxetteblog.com will not enter into any correspondence regarding the result of the contest and is not liable for any damages, loss or expenses that may result in connection to the prize.
– All submitted data will only be used for the purpose of the contest and in case you are one of the lucky winners, to send you the prize.

 

Update on 3rd January:

The 10 lucky winners are:

Rosina Marmion – Uruguay
Agata Giunta – Italy
Gaby Hildebrandt – Germany
Jorge Diaz – Argentina
Nikolett Zentai – Hungary
Ilya Volkov – Germany
Kersti Liivamäe – Estonia
Helen Franklin – England
Mariana Gumuzio – Spain
Remco Verhaaf – The Netherlands

The winners have been informed via e-mail and were announced on our Facebook page, too.