Gyllene Tider

Gyllene Tider’s energetic company gig

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Yesterday (better said today) at about 0:45 am CET, out of the blue there was a post on Roxette Official written by Per that Gyllene Tider gave a 1-hour-long concert at Berns in Stockholm. My first thought was: WTF? I’ve just come home from there and now they are playing in the city? Then I realized it must have been a company gig. And it was. GT’s first ever. The association they played for is Dagligvaruleverantörers Förbund (DLF). The firm held its annual meeting at Berns and they also celebrated their 45th anniversary. They mentioned on their Facebook page GT was a world-class entertainment and those were truly golden times yesterday (“Det var verkligen Gyllene Tider igår.”). Lately we can be sure it is worth working at a huge Swedish company or association. Earlier Roxette on an Oriflame meeting and now this.

 

 

Per himself shared the setlist on Roxette Official (still nothing on GT’s FB site, however, there are surely many GT fans who are not reading the posts by Roxette):

1. Juni, juli, augusti
2. Det hjärta som brinner
3. Puls
4. (Dansar inte lika bra som) Sjöman
5. Marie i växeln
6. Ljudet av ett annat hjärta
7. Ska vi älska, så ska vi älska till Buddy Holly
8. (Kom så ska vi) Leva livet
9. Tylö Sun

Extra:
10. Gå & fiska!
11. När alla vännerna gått hem

”Extra extra due to the extremely loud noise from the very generous crowd”:
12. Sommartider

 

We could only see some photos on Instagram from this event, but thank God someone shot a video, too and shared it on YouTube. You can see how energetic (Kom så ska vi) Leva livet was. Wow! They played only half of the amount of songs they played on tour, they didn’t have any rehearsals, only a quick sound check before the show, but the guys performed just like in a fully packed arena last summer. As Per says, these songs are in their DNA. True. They need a tour again!!! We need it, too!

 

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rphC_MH1ZMA

 

Thanks to Miss Dimberg, there is also a photo and a video (part of Puls) posted by Per on Roxette Official. DLF associates, I hope you know and appreciate how lucky you are!

 

Per Gessle’s complaint sent to Radio Halland

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pg_radio_halland

Per was a guest on Swedish Radio, P4 Halland this morning. They were talking about a letter Mr G sent to the radio 35 years ago (23rd February, 1979). You can also watch videos shot during the interview. Video 1, Video 2, Video 3.

The letter is about Radio Halland not playing Gyllene Tider often enough, just playing dance bands. He says they wrote quite a lot of letters like this. Radio Halland was special for them, since GT is from Halmstad and they thought the local radio should support local bands more. Per says he didn’t get a reply to that letter back then, he also forgot about it until 20 years later, when one day he entered the building of Radio Halland and saw it at the reception on the wall framed. He remembers they even sent postcards under fake names to have the chance to appear in Poporama (an old radio show).

Per says it was a tough time to make themselves heard, because just like now, the Swedish music industry was very Stockholm oriented. They had to use all the tools they could.

To the question when was the last time he wrote such a letter he laughed and said he stopped doing it now. By the way, some months after this letter had been written they got a contract from EMI Stockholm.

Photo of THE letter by Göran Fritzon
Photo of THE letter by Göran Fritzon

 

Per says he has always been doing what he loved, writing songs and playing them. He knew it from the very beginning that writing songs for others was not really his thing. He always wanted to play his songs himself.

To the question what was the biggest thing in his career when he is looking back he says it’s Roxette and the 4 Billboard No. 1’s. He says they were pioneers with their tours, touring in South America in the 90’s and also in China. If he thinks about Sweden only, Gyllene Tider is of course still enormous and performing in Ullevi was fantastic, but also their gig in Halmstad in 1995 was magical, then the Återtåget tour in 1996 and playing in Örjans vall in 2004.

As usual, Per says again it’s never clear which song will become a hit or what response you’ll get regarding a song. You have to find your own style and you have to be satisfied with your songs yourself, create them according to your own taste.

Regarding autographs Mr G says he didn’t even have an autograph back in the days, just look at the letter he wrote to Radio Halland, he hadn’t even signed it. Sometimes he did sign Marie’s autographs in the past, at the beginning. George Harrison also signed the others’ autographs in The Beatles he says.

Regarding what he still wants to do before he dies, Per says he wants to work and is looking forward to a new big and long Roxette adventure. Marie is on her solo tour now, but it’s a plan to do more Roxette. To the question if we can see him on stage with Marie during her tour he says he doesn’t think so.

 

 

 

A fan’s story of the ”Alla tiders Gyllene Tider” release party

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Sandra Knospe was one of the lucky fans who got an invitation to the book release party. To the party being held on 10th December in Leif’s Lounge at Hotel Tylösand. She travelled there with 3 of her friends and they enjoyed the journey, the meetings, the talks and the party to the full. Here’s her complete story about the event, how she experienced it.

The “Alla tiders Gyllene Tider” book release party or a not so usual short trip to Halmstad…

© Justyna Bereza
© Justyna Bereza

It’s a week ago already, but I needed this time to realize that it hasn’t been just a dream what I experienced last Tuesday, that it really happened. Again… Who would have thought back in 1997, when I witnessed the first book release party in my life at Hotel Tylösand, also for a GT biography, also written by Jan-Owe Wikström, that 16 years later I would be there again, at the same place, for yet another GT book release party, for another great GT book, a road biography, written by exactly the same person, Jan-Owe Wikström, with outstanding pictures from Anders Roos, that really deliver the live feelings from the past GT tour and bring back soooo many fantastic and intense moments of the tour. I can tell, I was there on all 19 shows. Going through the book brings me back the memories and make them become alive again immediately and I can’t wait to find some time to finally read the whole book.

But back to where I started… When I got the invitation I knew that I wouldn’t say no. Even though it seemed to be impossible to realize. I knew I had to work a day after the date of the party, I knew I couldn’t take my precious GT car for the trip since it’s missing a proper set of winter tires and I knew that probably nobody of my friends could join me, because it all came so suddenly and seemed to be impossible to manage in just a week. And as if that wasn’t hard enough to solve, I smashed my thumb in the car door just a few days before the trip should be. But everyone who knows me also knows that this wouldn’t hold me back from going. And suddenly everything turned out just perfect. My parents offered me their little Ford Fiesta to be able to go, my thumb was at least not broken just hurting (something I can easily ignore when it comes to such events), and even 3 of my friends made it possible to join me on this adventure. Life is great sometimes, isn’t it?

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Gyllene Tider sommaren 2013

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TV4 broadcasted an approximately 70-minute-long cut of Gyllene Tider’s summer tour. Unfortunately, it is available only in Sweden, but here you can read a short summary of it and see some screenshots.

micke_syd_cocktail

It’s a fantastic documentary with tons of live footage from several shows, mainly Skövde, Eskilstuna, Stockholm and Ullevi, Göteborg. Grumpy Production did a great job! The whole program is nicely cut, it’s of very high quality and contains a great mix of interviews with band members, their travelling around Sweden, joking and having fun backstage, performing live on stage, crowd scenes, the walk to the stage, short interviews with fans and Ms Dimberg, Thomas Johansson, Micke Syd’s mum and dad, Mats Olsson journalist, etc., the stage decoration being cut into parts and signed by the Golden Guys, then given to fans at the last show and we can see some meet & greet scenes. One can even get to know the recipe of a perfect cocktail from Micke Syd. Oh! And the yellow radio has an important role again.

GT_sommaren_2013_01  GT_sommaren_2013_03

My gosh! Even without seeing a complete concert in this docu you can relive the tour. You feel you are back in time, it’s summer, you are standing in the front row and going crazy for Gyllene Tider, singing along, jumping and shouting. Awesome!

 

The songs (no complete songs, but almost) you can hear & see performed live:

GT_sommaren_2013_02

  1. Juni, juli, augusti
  2. Sommartider
  3. Gå & fiska!
  4. Man blir yr
  5. När vi två blir en
  6. Ljudet av ett annat hjärta
  7. (Kom så ska vi) Leva livet
  8. Det blir aldrig som man tänkt sej
  9. (Dansar inte lika bra som) Sjömän
  10. Det hjärta som brinner
  11. Min tjej och jag
  12. Kung av sand
  13. Ska vi älska, så ska vi älska till Buddy Holly
  14. Flickan i en Cole Porter-sång
  15. Det är över nu
  16. Dags att tänka på refrängen

 

You can hear some other short GT tunes as well, however, I missed Flickorna på TV2 and Billy from the live footage, but something must be left for the DVD, too. 😉 No release date is set for the DVD yet, but hopefully, we don’t have to wait too long. Provide us with a live CD, too, please!

 

PS: You can see PG wearing glasses in the docu for a short while. And I’m not talking about sunglasses. 😉

 

Alla tiders Gyllene Tider – a fab book!

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GT_omslag_131028_rsI’ve just finished reading ”Alla tiders Gyllene Tider”. The book is of very high quality, anyone can tell it already at the first glance. It’s unbelievable how fast Jan-Owe Wikström could put all the stories together to release this fab book appr. a half year after the thought of writing this gem was born.

I love this road movie style he chose and even if most of the information in the book we could read / hear in old and recent interviews, it’s great to have all these things together in one book and one can still find some new info. Many things I read made me smile or even laugh. One of these was when Lasse Lindbom said: ”There is hardly any pop star potential in these boys. And I’m a little hesitant about the singer.” 🙂 Or when MP forgot to bring his guitar for the Bio Reflex show in Getinge, 1978. Loved Göran’s quote from Leksand (audience: 7 661), thinking about his past and not being an active musician when there is no GT in sight: ”I never play for less than ten thousand people.” One of the funniest stories is still Micke Syd’s with the girls in Malmö. They couldn’t recognize him and even if Micke Syd told, the girls couldn’t believe him it was really him, the drummer from GT.

There were other things that made me ”ahaaa, so that’s why it was like that”. For example, regarding changing the setlist and putting ”Gå & fiska!” towards the end instead of keeping it as an opening song – to spare Per’s voice. ”Det blir aldrig som man tänkt sej” was anyway the best choice for being the opener. Another thing I’ve never been thinking about is where the name of DJ Fritzon’s magic instrument, Farfisa (Fabbriche Riunite di Fisarmoniche) is coming from. Nice to know now this, too.

It was sad reading about the 1981 Kristianopel tragedy again, but it also made me think how lucky we were with the numbering system during this tour. However, we are living in an another century now, when fights were tougher for the best picnic places this time.

I like it a lot that all the band members and some other important guys and girls from the tour got shorter or longer chapters in the book. The Gessleist in me, of course, likes chapters ”Per Gessle” and ”Låtskrivandet” the most. No matter how much I already heard and read about his songwriting or how much he was sharing about it so far, I never get tired of reading about this topic again and again. C’mon, this guy wrote ”(Dansar inte lika bra som) Sjömän” in only 8 minutes! Wow! Reading this chapter about songwriting and seeing a pic of Per’s ”Röstmemon” app made me think it would be nice to have some of those files as bonus on some future release. Wishful thinking. 🙂

Besides these chapters I really mean that the whole book is a very enjoyable reading. I didn’t know, for example that Anders and his wife, Jennie are that much into making music for movies and TV series.

It’s nice to see all the old pics, mainly because lots of them we could have never seen before. I can’t even count how many times I mentioned that the actual photos of the Golden Guys are fantastic, all 5 of them look extremely hot on all pics. Anders Roos, the photographer did a splendid job. Tons of shots are in the book from the tour, from backstage, of many details we can’t see from our crowd positions and we can see lots of familiar faces. I would love to see all the pics Anders took (20 000), but couldn’t make it into the book. Even a separate photo book would sound good. 😉

Well, there are some typos, but the high quality, the great stories and the awesome pics make you forget about them quite soon.

I love 2 of the last few sentences in the outro: ”It should not take nine years for the next comeback. Everyone agrees on it.” Indeed! And until then, can’t wait to see the upcoming GT DVD.

PS #1: If you haven’t bought the book yet, I can highly recommend you to obtain it. It is really worth it.

PS #2: Oh and when I’m back to Sweden, I definitely have to check the second-hand bookshops to get hold of Jan-Owe’s GT book from 1997.