Marie’s tour: Karlstad, 22nd March #12

Setlist (no changes)

1. Så stilla så långsamt [1992 – DSR]
2. Kom vila hos mig [2013 – Nu!]
3. Bara för en dag [1987 – ES]
4. Det regnar igen [1992 – DSR]
5. Sista sommarens vals [2013 – Nu!]
6. Ber bara en gång [1996 – IETSV]
7. Sparvöga [1989 off the Swedish drama TV series]
8. Ett hus vid havet [1985 – DSV]
9. Ett bord i solen [2007 – TFT]
10. Så skimrande var aldrig havet [1990 off Taube compilation album]
11. Ännu doftar kärlek [1984 – HV]
12. Så länge det lyser mittemot [1992 – DSR]
13. Om du såg mig nu [1987 – ES]
14. Efter stormen [1987 – ES]
15. Den sjunde vågen [1985 – DSV]

16. Mellan sommar och höst [1992 – DSR]
17. Den bästa dagen [1985 – DSV]
18. Tro [1996 – IETSV]

Comments
The last concert of what we could call first leg if the tour took place in Karlstad, in front of a quite calm (boring?) audience that needed a while to wake up. For those of us who had been in Halmstad or Göteborg (to mention a few) quite a change.
But! Marie and the guys were awesome! Marie keeps of surprising us with the way she plays with her voice. The beginning of Tro, for example, felt like a going-jazz version of it. So if that is just a small taste of what the jazz project is about we are going to be amazed!
Jokke and Chris guitar solos sounded incredible. May have been the sound set up of the place but yesterday I could hear the different instruments very well and realised once again this band is something!
Like I mentioned, the audience was a bit on the calm side but they finally woke up with Efter Stormen and Mellan sommar och höst. Needless to say, the fans in the front were the noisy ones. And we all had lots of fun! The long car or train way from Halmstad to Karlstad that some put behind them was well worth it.
At the end Marie got flowers from two fans.
Now we all get a break until the concert in Borås on April 4th. Enjoy the almost two weeks ahead!

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Roxette to be featured in the Swedish Music Hall of Fame 2014

smhof-logo-180The Swedish Music Hall Of Fame has announced the first artists to be featured in the Hall of Fame and, of course, Roxette is among them!

The artists featured in the Hall of Fame have had a significant influence on the development of pop music in Sweden. The selection is done by an expert jury formed by various Swedish music journalists.  There is one condition in order to be elected: the record debut must have occurred the last 20 years before receiving the distinction. So for this year artists who had their debut in 1994 or earlier were considered.

The exhibition featuring Roxette will open on March 20th and will be available throughout 2014.

These are the first 12 elections to the Hall of Fame:

  • Evert Taube
  • Jan Johansson
  • The Latin Kings
  • Nationalteatern
  • Cornelis Vreeswijk
  • Stina Nordenstam
  • Ebba Gro?n
  • Eva Dahlgren
  • Entombed
  • Monica Zetterlund
  • Roxette
  • ABBA

This is the reason why the jury chose Roxette:

Pop music at its purest involves getting the listener to experience an enhanced sense of life for three or four minutes. Few groups in pop history have used that formula as skilfully and lovingly as Swedish duo Roxette, comprising Marie Fredriksson and Per Gessle. Only four Swedish acts have ever topped the US charts. Roxete did it four times. Songs like “The Look,” “Listen To Your Heart,” “It Must Have Been Love” and “Joyride” have become evergreens that never disappear from radio play lists.

The Swedish Music Hall of Fame is located in the same building as ABBA The Museum in Djurgården, Stockholm. Tickets cost 195 SEK and gives you access to both museums.

Congratulations!

Here’s the list of Roxette concerts we think should be released

We all got very excited when Per Gessle posted these two posts on the Roxette official Facebook page on the 17th and 25th of January.

FRIDAY UPDATE: Having discussions with EMI (Warner) about re-releasing all VHS/DVD Rox live + documentaries from the past. How about that? Maybe a huge box set? Rox channel on YouTube? Guess the hardest part is to find the stuff in the vaults…. /P. [Post by Roxette Official.]

SATURDAY UPDATE: For your info: Hope to get most of the live VHS & DVD releases from the past out in the open (in top quality) for your insatiable eyes and ears to enjoy. It’s a little messy in the archives at the moment due to the huge EMI/Warner-merger but I’ve got new batteries in my flashlight!. We’re on the case, promise. /P. [Post by Roxette Official.]

At this point all comes down to a simple question: what to release. Or to be even more precise: what Roxette have rights to release and is in a decent audio/picture quality. Per admitted hismelf the hardest part is to find the stuff in the vaults. We have decided to compile a simple to-do, to-find, to-release list, in case Warner forgets how many great concerts Roxette recorded in the past! Let’s do the proper research together – in case we missed something, please drop us a line or two here in the comment section or on our Facebook page (www.facebook.com/RoxetteBlog), so we might save a pearl or two from being forgotten 😉

With numbers (1, 2, 3…) we marked official VHS/laser disc/DVD releases, with letters (A, B, C…) – TV performances/internet broadcasts that could be counted as full scale gigs. For obvious reasons we have excluded all unprofessional, private and bootleg recordings as well as other single TV performances (playbacks or live). We didn’t count in one or two first songs from concert reports on TV as it’s a usual thing that journalists have access to those from each concert (as long as there are cameras in the arena). We are here for live experiences – ONLY!

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I’m 1 in a million, you’re 2 of a kind

No, we won’t do a flashmob every month, BUT Roxette Official reaching 1 million likes on Facebook is definitely something we had to celebrate. Many of us were thinking about this magic number since long, but then Kathie Winn came up with the question if we would really do something. Then we had to speed up, as the page was getting 2000-5000 likes per day.

But what should be the BIG idea? Well, when you’re stuck, besides talking to yourself, it’s always good to go back to the roots. This time to Neverending Love. Is there another phrase that could express our feelings towards Roxette any better? Not really. More than that, there is a perfect line – You’re 1 in a million, we’re 2 of a kind – which Alexandra Neitzel ”translated” into something more fitting for this occasion – I’m 1 in a million, you’re 2 of a kind. Then Basia Konarzewska came up with the idea to take pics of ourselves holding a sign that says this line.

An event was created on Facebook, just like the last time when we had the poster flashmob and many Roxers joined from around the world.  We all started thinking about our own photos, how creative they should be, if we should visit the gym before we take the pics or go to the hairdresser, but as I said before, the number of likes on the page was speeding up, so there was not much time left.

Finally, everyone could find out how to appear on the pic, where to write that 1 line and started calculating when Roxette Official might hit the 1 million threshold. Alexandra was doing different scenarios every 10 minutes, so we had a close estimation that 1 million could be reached at about 5 pm on Sunday, 26th Jan. We’ve been reloading the page constantly on this side of the world, alarm clocks were set on the other side and it was even more fun to spend our times on Facebook together with Per, who also seemed to be waiting for the magic moment impatiently. He was posting several times during the day, trying to push the number of likes towards the million. And it worked. However, poor him was busy with posting a cute boyish pic of himself right at the time the page reached 1 million. Quite Gessleish, isn’t it? He took a picture, but it showed 1,000,002. So he was desperately looking for a proper screenshot:

SUNDAY UPDATE #5: Aaaarrgghhh, missed the magic moment. This is what I got. Did you catch the million mark on photo? /P.

One can always count on Roxers, so he got the 1,000,000 screenshot which he could post at last. But before he did that, when the time has come, photos were spreading all over Roxette Official. The result was again: FAB! Many pics were uploaded to the timeline of the page and Per realized it immediately. He started sharing them, but after 4 he found out there would be more, so it made no sense to share them all. One of the pics he shared was Alexandra’s:

Thanks Alexandra and everybody else for making this happen! Splendido! Cheers!
/P&M

So, Per, could you tell us your alias you use in our closed fan groups? 😉 Funny that he posted exactly that pic with this comment. How else could it be if not because of him being a secret member of our groups? Haha.

He wrote a separate post, too after seeing there were more and more pics to come:

THANKS EVERYONE FOR YOUR FAB PICS RE THE MILLION MARK ON FACEBOOK! VERY NICE INDEED! /P.

 

We are incredibly glad you’ve been there with us waiting, Mr G. You deserved all the remaining Breaking Bad episodes for this. CONGRATS & keep up the good work on Roxette Official!

Roxers, thanx for joining! Come back tomorrow and we do it again! Well, OK, maybe not tomorrow. Let’s wait a bit more until our next flashmob. 😉

P.S.: No chance to sing Neverending Love with the original lyrics anymore – or at least for some weeks…

Here is a collage of all the 118 photos. You can download it in hi res from .

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Update 5:15 pm 27th January:

2 great videos have been made to keep this flashmob in our memories forever. The first one is made by Doogsyify Winn, Kathie’s handy daughter and the 2nd is by another talented video-maker Roxer, Michi Seeber. Thanx for your work with them and sharing them with us!

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lGkycAviPA

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3K7OdfSkAs

 

 

 

Roxette Official reaching 1 million likes

TheWorldsMostSuccessfulPowerPopDuoSupportedWithLoveByTheBestFansOnThePlanet reached 1 million likes on Facebook!

The page went live on 9th December 2010, so 3 years and 2 months ago. Thanx to this, we got even closer to Roxette and Roxette got closer to us than ever before. Daily posts, info, news, huge amount of pictures, loads of short videos, some re-re-repostings, great songs of the day, meaningful questions to us, answers to lots of our Qs, comments on many of our posts or comments = pure fun for our hungry Roxer souls!

One could say: but hey, there are bands and artists with much more likes on their Facebook page, so why is that such a big deal? I would say this 1 million is a fantastic and well-deserved result of a constant, top level ”thinking from the fans point of view” job, which is much appreciated by all of us. I think I can talk for tons of Roxers: it’s better being 1 in a million and having Mr G himself operating the site than being 1 in tens of millions without his jolly updates.

So, open the champagne and let’s celebrate! Congrats for the great achievement to the World’s Very Best oPERator and his Magical PowerPopDuo Partner, as well as to the wider Rox Family! Keep up the good thing and keep the Admin!
 

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Update: Per shared this article with this comment:

Hey, it’s you out there that made it happen! /P.