MTV’s acclaimed music series, MTV Unplugged premiered in 1989 and it showcased top artists in the industry performing acoustic versions of their songs. Roxette was the first non-native English speaker band invited. It was a fantastic opportunity for Roxette to show their qualities as a live band to a large audience worldwide. They recorded their show live at Cirkus in Stockholm, Sweden on 9th January 1993 and it was broadcast during MTV’s Roxette Weekend on 20th and 21st February, then on Swedish TV a week later.
Per says in the Att vara Per Gessle book:
It was good for our self-confidence to do the songs acoustically. The sound on the studio versions was based almost exclusively on production technology, but it was still quite easy to strip the songs down and play them in a natural way. And that probably affected the way we approached the new record [Crash! Boom! Bang!]. We wanted to tone down some of the technical stuff and find a more organic sound.
The gang
Lead vocals: Marie Fredriksson
Acoustic guitar & lead vocals: Per Gessle
Drums, percussion & Samsonite suitcase: Pelle Alsing
Backing vocals, accordion & mandolin: Vicki Benckert
Acoustic bass: Anders Herrlin
Acoustic guitar: Jonas Isacsson
Piano & pump organ: Clarence Öfwerman
Backing vocals, percussion & glockenspiel: Staffan Öfwerman
3 songs from the set – Joyride, The Look and Dangerous – were released on Roxette’s Rarities album in 1995, but for the rest we had to wait until their 20th anniversary in 2006 when they released the entire performance on a DVD in The RoxBox / Roxette 86–06 box set.
The 53-minute-long concert – 12 tracks + 3 short interview parts – on the DVD was what anyone could watch on MTV. The 8 bonus tracks weren’t on TV, they saw the light of day only on the 2006 release.
Setlist (they played the songs in this order originally)
Dangerous
Hotblooded
Spending My Time
The Heart Shaped Sea
Fingertips
Cry
I Never Loved A Man (The Way I Love You) (Aretha Franklin cover)
Heart Of Gold (Neil Young cover)
Surrender
It Must Have Been Love
So You Want To Be A Rock ‘N’ Roll Star (The Byrds cover)
Watercolours In The Rain
Fading Like A Flower (Every Time You Leave)
Here Comes The Weekend
The Look
Perfect Day
ENCORE
Listen To Your Heart
Church Of Your Heart
Joyride
Queen Of Rain
There would have been a second encore with Things Will Never Be The Same, The Big L. and So Far Away, but unfortunately, it never happened.
DVD setlist on the RoxBox
The Look
Queen Of Rain
Hotblooded
Interview
I Never Loved A Man (The Way I Love You) (Aretha Franklin cover)
It Must Have Been Love
Fingertips
Interview
Heart Of Gold (Neil Young cover)
Church Of Your Heart
Listen To Your Heart
Interview
Here Comes The Weekend
Joyride
So You Wanna Be A Rock ‘N’ Roll Star (The Byrds cover)
BONUS TRACKS
Dangerous
Spending My Time
The Heart Shaped Sea
Cry
Watercolours In The Rain
Surrender
Fading Like A Flower (Every Time You Leave)
Perfect Day
Now, 30 years later, it would just be amazing to have this gem on streaming services. Both as audio and video. Maybe one day?
Stills are from the DVD.
Photo from the press conference shows Brian Diamond, MTV Europe Executive Producer and Monica Eek, Head of Entertainment at Swedish TV next to Marie and Per.
Live Nation and TV4 follow up the acclaimed TV format Late Night Concert with a second season. This time we get to see some of Sweden’s most beloved artists perform from Cirkus & Hasselbacken in Stockholm without an audience, with a completely new extra stage. The program is broadcast on Wednesdays and Thursdays in December with a final on Christmas Eve. All six episodes of the second season can be seen on TV4, TV4 Play and C More.
Late Night Concert is a collaboration between Live Nation and TV4, which premiered this spring and was recorded at an empty Gröna Lund. The format was born out of the current situation when live music has fallen silent when concerts have been forced to scale down and is based on the idea of spreading live music out into the country and home to the TV couches.
In the second season, which premieres on the second of December, artists such as Agnes, Miss Li, Jill Johnson, Per Gessle, Myra Granberg, Carola, Astrid S, Victor Leksell and others will appear. In addition to a strong line-up with some of Sweden’s most well-known and playing artists, the program will be broadcast from the classic concert arena Cirkus in Stockholm. New for the season is also the brand new stage “It’s Hits”, which summarizes the music year 2020 when some of the most appreciated artists and songs on Spotify in Sweden take the stage.
“After this summer’s success, we have been overwhelmed by tributes from viewers who appreciate the new concert format. It’s great that we have managed to deliver a high quality and innovative concert experience. TV4 loves music and it is a brilliant example of a unique program format born during this pandemic “, says Jonathan Nordin, Executive Producer at TV4.
“Late Night Concert has not only been extremely appreciated by viewers and artists, it has also created new hits. Zara Larsson’s and Carola’s duet “Säg Mig Var Du Står” which was born in the program has topped the lists on Spotify with over 10 million listens and is already a modern classic “, says Peter Björklund, Marketing Partnership Manager at Live Nation.
Late Night Concert is recorded at Cirkus without an audience and is broadcast on TV4. The program can also be seen on TV4 Play and C More. More artists are announced on an ongoing basis. Partners in the program are Coca-Cola, Karl Fazer, Mio, Polestar, Sonos and Spotify.
Broadcast times – Late Night Concert winter 2020
Wednesday 2/12 23:00, Late Night Concert Part1 – Carola, Mariette, Samuel Ljungbladh
Thursday 3/12 23:00, Late Night Concert Part 2 – Miss Li, Myra Granberg & Newkid
Wednesday 9/12 23:00, Late Night Concert Part 3 – Agnes, Madi Banja & Sandro Cavazza Wednesday 16/12 23:00, Late Night Concert Part 4 – Per Gessle, Astrid S & Victor Leksell
Thursday 17/12 23:00, Late Night Concert Part 5 – Jill Johnson, Robin Stjernberg, Smith & Thell
Christmas Eve 24/12 20:00, Christmas Concert – Late Night Christmas
Concerts are appr. 45 minutes long. The show will probably be available for watching in Sweden only.
Judith’s review
Today it was finally the day for concert that many were waiting for, expecting it to be a blast! And what to say, the concert was more than super! Marie was welcomed by a very very loud crowd and she had to wait a bit to start singing the first song. After that she was all smiles! The shouting and the smiles remained the whole concert.
After an amazing concert in Linköping I didn’t think this could be topped, but wow! The band did an amazing job, I’ve never seen Surjo move around so much before, Chris, watch out! 😉
Jokke was all smiles all the time, as were all of us in the audience. Jokke also delivered an incredible solo in Den sjunde vågen, which also felt longer than usual. It was simply great to see the band and Marie have so much fun with us, or the other way around.
The most touching song was probably the last one, Tro. It was the last concert for many fans and I could see many of us hugging and singing along. It felt as if the song had suddenly become a hymn for love and friendship. Not to forget to mention that fans had arranged to bring roses to give to Marie at the end. Everybody had one rose, at the end of Tro all of them were brought to the front and put on the stage. Micke collected them all and took them backstage for Marie.
There were also some familiar faces in the audience. Lasse Lindbom, Anders Herrlin, Mats MP Persson, Jonas Åkerlund and, last but not least, Per and Åsa, just to mention a few. Per posted on Facebook that they celebrated the 25th anniversary of The Look reaching #1 in USA at the after-show party.
Patrícia’s review
As you could already read here and there, Marie’s gig in Stockholm was marvellous with many famous people in the crowd. Oh yes, with Per among them! Woohoo! We’ve been expecting him to appear at this concert, but we couldn’t be sure he would really come until we saw Åsa, Per and Jonas Åkerlund arriving together 1-2 minutes before 19:30. They found their places in the 10th row, on the left side, close to the exit. After many Roxers realized Per was there, we started clapping and he and Åsa waved to us smiling. After some minutes we repeated it. It was awesome to see him in the crowd, sitting among us. Besides them, there were many other familiar faces and now I’m not talking only about the hardcore fans. Mats MP Persson (who was sitting in front of Per), Anders Herrlin, Clarence Öfwerman, Dea Norberg (she even posted a pic on her Instagram), Marie Dimberg, Lasse Lindbom were there in the audience, just to name some of them, but there were many other famous Swedish people in the crowd. Also Oscar, Marie’s son was there, sitting in the 6th row, together with his grandma, Micke’s mum.
One could have thought that this crowd would make Marie and the band nervous, but no! They were in TOP shape and rocked Cirkus! The sound was perfect and Marie’s voice simply blown us away. She was smiling a lot and the audience was clapping so much that some songs had to wait to be started. I think there was no concert where they could start Så stilla så långsamt so late, waiting for the audience to be silent. Marie enjoyed it so much, you could see it on her face. She was shining!
I must admit that the audience was very good at clapping, they could even follow the rhythm Surjo and Micke showed by clapping themselves, but if you ask about how many of them stood up… Hm. We, the international fans (Argentina, Austria, Brazil, Bulgaria, Czecz Republic, Germany, Hungary, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Russia, Switzerland, The Netherlands, USA etc.) were sitting at different places in the crowd, owing to the not so funny mechanism the tickets went on sale in October. Some got tickets in rows in the middle, some in the front, some in the back, others on the balcony. We thought it was a great chance to animate the Swedish part of the crowd even more, since we could do a little of this ”job” in every corner of Cirkus.
We stood up already at Kom vila hos mig and we expected the Cirkus crowd being at least as cool as Göteborg audience was and following us, but not really. Unfortunately, there were a lot of people in the middle and on the left of the first 4-5 rows who were not willing to stand up, so people in the back could have thought it was still better to be sitting. We thought, OK, maybe at the next fast song they would realize how they should act when seeing how Marie loves this reaction and they see the security guys didn’t make us sitting.
Oh yes, talking about security guys – who were not present at any other shows so far – Atli, from Show Security Sweden was there too. You surely remember him and his team from the Gyllene Tider tour. I greeted him after the concert and he said the show was great, he liked it a lot.
Back to the concert: Så länge det lyser mittemot made us stand up and dance again. Then there were some more in the crowd who followed us, but the left side was still sitting, only clapping. Efter stormen was our next party song. It rocked big time again! There were Swedes sitting in front of me and it was such a good feeling to see them deciding: ”OK, maybe now we could really stand up” and they did so. C’mon, people! There is nothing wrong with it… Live it!
Den sjunde vågen was fabulous this time again and I always have a big smile on my face when I see Marie’s reaction to the fact she has to go off stage. It’s different every time, but always so lovely. After she left the stage, the guys went crazy. Christoffer even throw away his hat. Hat was grabbed up by Jokke when they also left the stage. I have to mention that I think Jokke was the best on this concert from the 5 I’ve seen. He’s a great guitarist! We couldn’t stop clapping and being loud to have Marie back on stage and some minutes later she appeared again for the extra songs. We didn’t sit down and Mellan sommar och höst was again the song that made even more people stand up. Even Per stood up towards the end of it. Hats off, Mr. G! We’re very proud of you! 😉 Then came Den bästa dagen and many of us had the feeling it was really the best day of our lives. Such a fantastic concert it was! And it hadn’t ended yet. During Tro we stood up again and there were roses in our hands. We’ve been holding them up and waving them during the whole song. Thank you very much for the great idea, Christina Tholander and Nina Wolfframm and also thanx a lot to Heartland Anne, who organized roses for many fans and even a heart-shaped bunch of red roses for Marie. When the song ended, we’ve been forwarding the roses to the front and Micke was collecting them, while Marie got one bunch of red roses from a fan, handed over by Micke N-S and Chris collected the heart-shaped bunch. It looked fab and Marie was so happy to get the flowers. Awesomeness! (You can see it here, in the video I embedded and on these 3 Instagram pics: 1, 2, 3.) Per was leaving his seat before Tro ended, but Åsa stayed until the end of the song.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TaE7m1E1Vc
After the concert, there was a celebration of the 25th anniversary of The Look’s becoming No. 1. on the Billboard. The celebration took place in a separated area of the restaurant at Cirkus. Everyone looked very happy and enjoyed their time there. Per’s comment on tonight’s show:
TUESDAY EVENING UPDATE: Had a blast at Marie’s gig at Cirkus in Stockholm. Wonderful concert and Miss Effe + band in top shape. Great to see so many Roxers making a lotta noise. Afterwards some press + celebration with old friends. As you probably know by now….The Look No 1 in the US goes 25! Thanx Warner/EMI for being great hosts! Cheers, P.
We’re glad you enjoyed it! We had a blast, too! Unfortunately, this was my last concert on this tour. I’m very sad about it, but I’m grateful that I could be a part of it and enjoy every second of 5 absolutely fabulous and exceptional concerts. Tack så väldigt mycket Marie & the band! By the way, can you believe that only 4 shows left from this magical tour? Impossible. We need a next tour soon!
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]
Now we know it was not a rumour. Roxette did perform on the annual autumn party organized by a private Swedish television TV4. It is still uknown how many songs they sang.
For those of you who didn’t catch the latest broadcast of Per Gessle’s “Party crasher tour” gig from Cirkus, there is a good news – the performance will be repeated once again in the shorter version on December 30th at 11.00 am local time on P4 Skaraborg. It is unknown which songs will be included in this show and if there is a chance for something new.