Per Gessle

Per Gessle in the Autoropa Racing Days video

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You might remember Per sharing pictures of himself at a Racing Day at Ring Knutstorp, Sweden last September (pic 1, pic 2). Mr G mentioned back then:

Racing yesterday at Ring Knutstorp. Well, I actually didn’t race. Just a few laps on the track. I’m a coward.

So, the car was driven by someone else on the track and we were also joking a lot about him wearing that helmet or not in the end. I bet many would have been happy to be there and check Per’s LALALA LaFerrari from the inside. It seems some were lucky enough to sit in it for a little time.

Besides providing the visitors with the possibility to see tons of posh cars, there was a charity race for Childhood Cancer Foundation and 300000 SEK was collected for them. On a side note, Hugh Grant was also present and he was racing.

6 months after the event, Autoropa, the organizer of the racing days shared a short VIDEO summary of what happened at Ring Knutstorp that September day. They talked to Per, so he also appears in the video. Check him at 0:36 and 4:40. As you can see, the mystery is solved. Mr G did wear that helmet, even if it was maybe only for some seconds or minutes. Per says in the video that Åsa (who was btw driving the LaFerrari to and from Ring Knutstorp) drives a little faster on the roads than Per. Who would have thought? 😉

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Stills are from the Autoropa Racing Days video

 

Photos from the event:

Autoropa FB page (photos)
Autoropa website (photos)
rignellskansljuvahem.blogspot.se (photos)
flickr.com (isakhuynh) photos 1; 2;
Aftonbladet (article and photos)

 

Have a “Gessle inspired weekend”

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Any plans for March? Particulary, March 13 and 14? No? Then you could go and book a “Gessle inspired weekend” at Per’s Hotel Tylösand in Halmstad. Everybody who books a “Spa & Entertainment package” will get a special treat with a wine tasting of exclusive Gessle wines as well as do a tour around the hotel’s unique pop history landmarks – as is stated on the homepage of the hotel.

This is the complete program as listed on the site:

PROGRAM

WINE TASTING – Friday and Saturday 17.30 PM
The Per Gessle Selection is the brand for the series of wines that the Swedish super star and wine aficionado Per Gessle has launched with the help of some of the world’s most prominent wine makers. In this series there are champagne as well as red, white and non-alcoholic wines, and we will be served a selection of these during the tasting session.

THE POP TOUR – Friday and Saturday
On both Friday and Saturday there will also be a guided tour of selected pop history items on display at the hotel, led by music writer and Per Gessle biographer Sven Lindström, who guides us around Leif’s Lounge with its exhibition of unique Roxette and Gyllene Tider material from Gessle’s long music career.
Sven Lindström has written the authorised biography ”Att vara Per Gessle” as well as chronicling Roxette’s career and sensational comeback. Together with Per, he also hosts the weekly show Nordic Rox, presenting the best music from the Northern countries on Sirius XM satellite radio.

BOOK NOW!
Availability is limited, so book now for a weekend in March with a little bit more of everything.

Per Gessle – the book fair pop quiz sound recording

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Pic by Patrícia Peres

You surely remember last year’s Göteborg Book Fair either you could personally be there or not. On 26th September Per, in between 2 signing sessions, took part in a very entertaining pop quiz that was led by Sven Lindström. Another participant of the quiz was the other lonely boy, Nisse Hellberg. 4 months after the event, the book fair team decided to share the sound recording of that seminar, so now everyone can enjoy it. A short summary of the day as chapter 1 you could already read here at RoxBlog in this article and 1/3 of the seminar you could already watch as a video summary in this RoxBlog article. The seminar was of course in Swedish, but it is worth listening to it even if you don’t speak the language. How these guys love music shines through their talking. Always! Oh and you can also hear how Per loves to win. Because he won. Of course.

Hopefully, chapter 2, i. e. the interview Jan Gradvall did with Per on 28th September will also be uploaded as a sound recording at least. Until then, enjoy this little pop quiz!

 

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Any Per Gessle birthday party today?

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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.

 

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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?

[yop_poll id=”18″]

 

 

 

Per Gessle on Swedish Radio about Kaj Kindvall

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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.

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