Roxette

RoXXXette On The Road – the great collection of the Roxers Edition UPDATE

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More than a year has passed since the fabulous tour photo book, RoXXXette On The Road was published. As you all know, it has 2 versions. A normal edition and a Roxers limited edition. The limited edition is in a beautiful box and it exists in 300 numbered copies only. It contains 16 pages more than the normal edition and it includes a numbered print-out with the signature of Anders Roos, most talented photographer and publisher of the book. The numbered print-outs exist in 12 different versions, each of them numbered from 1 to 25. On top of all this, each and every single limited edition RoXXXette On The Road is signed by Per Gessle. Some books contain Per’s signature only or the year 2016 written as well, but there are even copies in which you can find a Leif drawing by Mr. G or some most important words (e.g. Badabam!, Nice! or Cheers!) written by the man himself. This makes every single copy even more unique.

We started collecting photos of these limited edition books (see HERE) and the collection is now updated by 17 more photos. In case yours is not in the set yet, please send us an e-mail following the guidelines stated in the collection intro and we include your copy as well.

So far we have 80 books collected, 27% of the total limited edition books. Way to go to have them all, but we have the first (No. 1) and the last (No. 300), so we just need to fill in the gap in between. Haha. So, we’re looking forward to seeing the missing photos! Help us to complete the collection one day. 😉

Book No. 271; pic by Jana Pešková

 

En vacker kväll poll #10 – Roxette

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What’s good always must come to an end. Per Gessle and his majesty band have already started rehearsing to the summer tour, so this poll comes right in time to see which Roxette classics you would love to hear in Mr Gessle’s interpretation. You had already one occassion for during the man from Roxette Party Crasher Tour, but now for the first time he will perform both Swedish and English songs from his whole  career. Dreaming of Per’s “Watercolours in the rain” version? Just vote.

PS. I know Vaulnerable wasn’t performed live, it’s not on that list, but that one would be of a suprise to please a lot of fans!

[yop_poll id=”30″]

Roxette in ”Filmen om Badrock”

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As we already wrote about it in March, a film about Badrock (“Filmen om Badrock”), where Marie Fredriksson and Per Gessle performed as Roxette for the first time, premiered in Swedish cinemas on 7th March. From a March TV4 interview with Björn Skifs (who is behind the whole Badrock idea) it turned out that it would be worth watching by Roxers, because besides Badrock concert material from the ’80s in Borgholm and backstage moments where we can see Marie, Per, Roxette, we even get to see Marie looking back at those times and hear her talking about her experiences.

Now the film had its TV broadcast premiere on 3rd June on TV4 (can be watched in Sweden only). Better said, a TV cut of it, because the original movie is 1 hour 55 minutes long, the TV cut is 66 minutes only. So a lot is left out and this way there might be even more Marie and Per and Roxette in it. Let’s hope the movie is out on DVD in the near future and we get to see the whole thing.

The TV cut contains footage from the past 30 years (Badrock history: 1986-1992; 2016), on-stage moments, backstage moments, rehearsals, how the concerts were recorded from the air, the royal family’s visits at the shows, as well as interviews with several artists, Marie among them. Interviews are with Björn Skifs, Anne-Lie Rydé, Marie Fredriksson, Pernilla Skifs, Anders Berglund, Nina Söderquist, Tommy Nilson, Leif Larsson, Lena Philipsson, Lisa Nilsson, Sharon Dyall, Marie Bergman, Peter Milefors, Mats Ronander.

Marie says Badrock was huge and there were a lot of good artists and the weather was incredibly warm. She says she is happy she could work together with Anders Berglund, it was easy to work with him.

Per in a short 1987 Öland Radio interview says Badrock is fun and playing tennis with Peter Milefors is cool. Mr. G says he and Marie created a group called Roxette and they would first perform at Badrock. Then there is a Marie interview cut again and she says, ”Like Lovers Do” at the beginning was a big song for Roxette and she was incredibly nervous to perform it. Everything was so new, but it was an awesome experience.

Sharon Dyall says when she was singing together with Marie and Sanne Salomonsen, it was real girl power. Marie says they had a powerful song (”Girls”) and she always thought that Sanne sang so damn good  and she was wondering how the hell she could join in, but in the end it turned out to be really good and they had so much fun. Those times were really amazing.

It’s great to see Borgholm then and today, so beautiful. It will be a pleasure to see Per playing there this summer, but also sad to think about the fact that Roxette AND all the fans missed the chance to have a concert and see Roxette playing there in 2015. Would have been an out of the world experience both for the band and Roxers for sure. And of course, we still don’t give up hoping for the complete 1989 Roxette gig in Borgholm to be released one day.

Some stills from the TV cut of ”Filmen om Badrock”:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanx for your technical support, Gabriela Demichelli!

Spending My Time is the Listen To Your Heart of Joyride

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Did you know? 2 extremely important Roxette songs were written on this day 27 years ago. Yeah, Per Gessle, the 8th wonder songwriter wrote Joyride and Spending My Time on the same day. Isn’t he a genius? I mean, look at these 2 songs. Both of them are masterpieces and he could just come up with the power pop song in the morning and the big ballad in the afternoon. He is second to none!

Per says about Joyride:

When I wrote this one Roxette was sitting on top of the world. Three number ones in the US already and more to come. It felt like nothing could go wrong, I was full of self-confidence and every song felt so easy to create.

My wife (then girlfriend) left a note on my piano saying in Swedish: ”Hej din tok, jag älskar dej!”, which means ”Hello you fool, I love you!” It just had to be a chorus.

The writing process went very quickly. So fast I actually wrote ”Spending My Time” together with MP Persson the same afternoon. Hallelujah!

On The Per Gessle Archives you can listen to 2 demos of Joyride: first a less produced, acoustic Joyrider recorded on 22 May 1990 at T&A and a lot more produced Joyride recorded on 23 May 1990 at T&A. Listen to Per and Sven Lindström talking about the demos HERE.

Per about Spending My Time:

The music to ”Spending My Time” was cowritten with my old chap MP Persson. We finished writing it the very same day that I wrote ”Joyride”. Must’ve been May 1990.

I liked the idea of writing a lyric that starts in the morning and ends at night. This was my humble attempt. Great vocal performance by Marie and a super production from Clarence made this one a winner for Roxette.

On The Per Gessle Archives you can listen to the demo to Spending My Time recorded on 24 May 1990 at T&A. Listen to Per and Sven talking about the demo HERE.

Per adds:

I knew we had a great song (MP and I wrote this one together) but the demo always sucked!!! I couldn’t sing it very well, I don’t know why. It was always meant for Marie. She did a tremendous job delivering it. I’m sure it would have become a Top 5 song in the US if EMI wouldn’t have scrapped the entire company and sacked 122 people in the middle of marketing this one. People loved it but radio never got the chance to catch up. The Music Business. You win some, you lose some.

Stills are from the official videos to Joyride and Spending My Time

    

Pics are from ”Songs, Sketches & Reflections”.

Per’s quotes are from his book ”Songs, Sketches & Reflections” and the demo conversations from The Per Gessle Archives, as well as the PG about songs section on RoxBlog.

Roxette at Badrock – cinema premiere

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As we could already read it in press releases, a film about Badrock (“Filmen om Badrock”), where Marie Fredriksson and Per Gessle performed as Roxette for the first time, will premiere in Swedish cinemas on 7th March. So far we didn’t know what exactly the film would contain, but this morning TV4 had an interview with Björn Skifs (he is behind the whole Badrock idea) and they showed some parts. AND… AND… AND… besides Badrock concert material from the ’80s in Borgholm and backstage moments where we can see Marie, Per, Roxette, we get to see Marie looking back at those times and hear her talking about her experiences. How absolutely fantastic is that!

In the TV4 cut you can hear Per on Öland Radio in 1987 saying he and Marie created a group called Roxette and they would first perform at Badrock. Then you see Marie talking, as natural as only she can be, in her stylish black leather jacket. She says, ”Like Lovers Do” at the beginning was a big song for Roxette and she was incredibly nervous to perform it. Everything was so new, but it was an awesome experience.

HERE you can watch a video where you can see Marie with your own eyes. Watch it mainly from 3:07. 😉

Let’s see if the film is out later on DVD as well or if it will be broadcast on TV. And if it contains much more than what we could see in this short video. Would be cool!

Still is from the TV4, Nyhetsmorgon video showing parts of “Filmen om Badrock”

 

Thank you, Carola Lindberg for watching the TV this morning and that you let us know about it!