Halmstad

Per Gessle – En vacker kväll in Halmstad, Sweden – 11th August 2017 – #16

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Per Gessle’s tour finally reached the point when he performed in his hometown, Halmstad. We had been looking very much forward to this show, because concerts in home ground are always so special. This time it was even more special when we got to know that SVT was to record the whole concert. They prepared all cameras at different points of the venue, Simstadion Brottet and we could also see that there were huge screens on the 2 sides of the stage.

Fans came from several countries again: Argentina, Australia, Austria, Finland, Germany, Hungary, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Russia, Sweden, Ukraine, USA.

During the day, Lars Winnerbäck turned up in town, so we could sense there was a surprise guest appearance planned for the night. It became 100% sure when we heard Per and Lars rehearsing Småstadsprat and Honung och guld at the soundcheck in the afternoon (from 16:15). We were curious how they would rearrange the setlist if at all, now that Lars joined them for these 2 songs. These 2 songs they rehearsed for appr. 15 minutes and then came Min plats and a little Puls. Woohoo, so we were happy that the setlist might be longer, since Puls got back on it.

Helena arrived at 16:50 and she went in to the venue at the main entrance, so she was walking next to the whole bunch of fans waiting for being let in. We all applauded and cheered her loudly and she was happy about it. Such a lovely lady!

Mats MP Persson arrived to the venue at around 17:45. He was on the guestlist of course and came all the way by bike to enjoy the show. Many fans spotted him and jumped on him to take pictures together. He seemed to be a bit uncomfortable with it, but was posing for the pics anyway. Nice guy.

The SVT cameras for the show weren’t enough, Anders Roos was also there to take thousands of photos of this hometown show and of course, Åsa was also there filming a lot. This time she just couldn’t come to the front row, because the TV guys were moving there with the cameras too, so they would have bumped into each other. This way she was filming from the sides of the stage (and maybe from somewhere else in the crowd too? We will see when the vids are up on GessleHomeVids, YouTube).

First it was time for the performance of the support acts, Strandles and Good Harvest. Strandels put the crowd in a bit of a party mood, then Good Harvest calmed us down a bit. In between the support acts and before PG’s show we could enjoy the view of the huge crowd (11000 people!) on the side screens. The cameraman was very funny. He spotted some people and left the camera shooting them until they realized they were on the screen. The crowd was laughing at the reaction of those up on the screens. It added a lot to the mood of the audience. There should be such screens and cameramen at all venues.

Per’s concert kicked off some minutes after 21:00. To hear På promenad genom stan in Halmstad is a real pleasure, here it made even more sense to start the show with this song. It Must Have Been Love was a success and Helena got cheered loudly. Right after IMHBL came Småstadsprat, so there was the first change in the setlist. For the part which is sung by Lars Winnerbäck on the album, Lasse came up on stage and he was singing it. He got a loud applause from the crowd when he appeared. The song sounded beautiful. No other version sounds as wonderful as the one with the original duet, Per and Lars. What a delight! The crowd cheered the duo loudly during the song too and when they finished it as well and Mr. G told the audience it wasn’t bad. Per and Lasse hugged each other after the song ended. Then Per was talking about the rehearsals and that he tried to find songs which he didn’t play live before and he found there were 470 of such songs. He decided for a song off Gyllene Tider’s 1982 album, Puls. He said he knows Lars likes this song too and so they decided to sing it together. So they went on with Honung och guld. Lasse’s favourite album from GT is Puls and HOG is his favourite song off it. It sounded great in this duet version. After they ended the song, Per and Lasse hugged each other again and Lars went off stage. Per told the crowd it’s hard to top now. I have recorded the whole Lars Winnerbäck guest appearance in Halmstad (not the best quality video because of the smoke and lights, but still you might enjoy it). 😉 Watch it HERE!

 

Ljudet av ett annat hjärta and Gå & fiska! were the songs that made the crowd party the most. I actually expected a more active crowd in Halmstad, but they seemed to be a bit lazy during most of the songs. Of course, the first 5 rows and some smaller groups in the middle and in the back were more in jumping and dancing mood, but the rest of the crowd mostly was clapping and singing along.

After the party session there came the band presentation and Magnus there told the crowd a secret, that after the show there is an after party at Per’s place. He even mentioned a fake address and told the crowd to tell the guards they are with Magnus, so they can join the party. Haha. Mister Magnus also mentioned that Andreas had just turned 50 (which is still unbelievable, as he doesn’t look more than 40 – even Per was kidding him with it), so it’s time to celebrate. When it was Christoffer’s turn to play the intro to The Look and he was rocking to the right side of the stage, Magnus gave bunny ears to him. It looked funny!

Varmt igen and Tycker om när du tar på mej turned out to be wonderful this time too. Helena was singing her heart out and the audience appreciated it. In the first encore there was a change too, they put (Hon vill ha) Puls before Joyride. It was cool to hear Puls again. During Joyride some balloons were let into the air by front row fans.

For the second encore, Andreas went real wild on the Sommartider drum intro. This caught the audience too. Was cool to watch it on the big screens too!

The ending was new too. The closing song was Min plats. Before they started playing it, the crowd shouted ”Gessle! Gessle! Gessle!”. Per smiled, but other than that he didn’t really react on it, just talked a bit and started with the song.

At the very end, after the bow, before going off stage, Per tried to throw picks from the mic stand to the crowd, but most of them landed on the stage still, so he gave up. Not the first time. Haha.

The whole band was very energetic and gave their very best for this show. Also the guest appearance of Lars was very cool and from what we saw on the screens, the recordings will be fab. Looking very much forward to seeing it on TV and maybe it’s a good idea to release it on DVD just before Xmas. Hint, hint!

After the show many fans went to Hotel Tylösand. Not for an after party, rather to say thank you to the band for the show. When we arrived, we bumped into Jonas Åkerlund in the lobby. Then a fan from Norway approached to us. He found it fun that we are a younger generation and a fan of Per. Even if we became a fan of PG only 6-8 years after him. He is a fan since 1983 and so he missed the older songs of Per, the first 2 solo albums. Well, maybe next time, on a future tour we hear some songs off those albums too. Or maybe not. Haha.

Andreas, Malin-My, Chris, Clarence and Magnus arrived to the hotel and we thanked them for the gig and chatted with them for a while. They were all very nice and also kindly posed for pictures. Helena and Ola got to the hotel already before any fans arrived and Per decided to enter the hotel from a back entrance, so we couldn’t meet them. But still it was a very nice time with all the band members we could meet.

Lars Winnerbäck also spent the night at Hotel Tylösand and while we had a further nice night at Leif’s Lounge, we saw him having a chat with his friends there.

All in all, it was a cool evening and night in Halmstad, with PG and the band on fire, with a nice surprise guest on stage and some great crowd reactions. Now please, hurry up and share the recordings with us asap, SVT! And we want it on DVD too!

Per after the show:

Oj! Oj! Vilket fantastiskt gig det blev i Halmstad! Perfekt kväll, hur mycket folk som helst (11000? 12000?), grymt band och dessutom Linköpings stolthet Lasse Winnerbäck på besök. Tack alla som var med och sjöng och dansade och gjorde detta till en superb kväll att minnas väldigt länge. Love! /P.
PS. Vi filmade allt, kommer att bli en härlig rulle!

All photos in the article are taken by Patrícia Peres.

Setlist

1. På promenad genom stan
2. Vilket håll du än går
3. Juni, juli, augusti
4. Det hjärta som brinner
5. Segla på ett moln / Första pris
6. It Must Have Been Love
7. Småstadsprat (duet with Lars Winnerbäck)
8. Honung och guld (duet with Lars Winnerbäck)
9. Kung av sand
10. Här kommer alla känslorna (på en och samma gång) / Flickan i en Cole Porter-sång
11. Ljudet av ett annat hjärta
12. Spegelboll
13. Gå & fiska!
Band presentation
14. The Look (with När vi två blir en as intro)

Encore:
15. Varmt igen (with Queen of Rain as intro)
16. Tycker om när du tar på mej
17. (Hon vill ha) Puls
18. Joyride

Encore 2:
19. Sommartider
20. Min plats

Videos:
Juni, juli, augusti
Första pris
It Must Have Been Love: 1; 2;
Småstadsprat & Honung och guld (complete surprise guest appearance)
Småstadsprat: 1; 2; 3;
Honung och guld: 1; 2;
Ljudet av ett annat hjärta & Spegelboll
Varmt igen: 1; 2;
Sommartider: 1; 2;
Min plats

Articles, pictures:
Hallandsposten: 1; 2; 3;
P4 Halland
SVT: PG interview before the concert

 

Roxette XXX Tour – Halmstad, Sweden (Örjans Vall) – July 22 – #55

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Last time Roxette played in Halmstad was 5 years ago, so it was high time for them to do their 6th Halmstad Rox show of all time. Many international Roxers thought they would love to see the band playing in their hometown, so some bought a ticket for only this show in Sweden, others are there at more Swedish shows, but definitely didn’t give the Halmstad gig a miss. There were fans from the US, Argentina, Russia, Spain, the UK, Poland, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Switzerland, Austria, Greece and probably more.

The waiting in front of the venue started in the morning and local people were smiling at us during the day, taking pictures of us, posting it on Facebook and wished us a great evening. Lovely! Even the police guys driving by every now and then showed thumbs up for us from their car. SVT, Hallandsposten and P4 Radio were also there with us. They did some interviews with the fans and shot some cuts. (See links in the Articles and photos section.)

This time there were approximately 100 early entrance ticket owners, but only a bit more than half of them showed up by the time the entrance started. There were also fans who didn’t respect those who were waiting there all day and wanted to do the trick at the inlet. Fortunately, Show Security Sweden was there again to support us and Atli (head of the security team) made it clear how the entrance should work and those who wanted to cheat faced a very correct and fair security supervisor. He got applauded by us for his fairness. The whole security team was very polite and helpful this time, too. Thanks a lot again, Show Security Sweden for assisting us! You rule!

Once we were inside, we found our spots in the front rows and couldn’t wait for the show to start. God was good all day and night and there was no rain at all, but sunshine.

Tonight there were 2 support acts. Besides Eskobar it was Mariette who got on stage first. Her performance started at 19:30. We wished for a far much better crowd in Halmstad than the Kalmar gang and already during the support act performances one could see the audience would be more active than the usually reserved Swedish crowds. Mariette and her band did a great job, the Swedes loved them and yes, I think the international fans liked them, too.

Eskobar hit the stage after Mariette. They communicated even more with the audience than in Kalmar and there were more crowd reactions to their songs than in the previous Swedish city. They enjoyed being on stage and playing for us to the full. Daniel even thanked for the cheering to the ”international guests” before performing Freedom. For Someone New they called Mariette back to the stage and performed the song as a duet. It sounded marvellous!

roxette_in_halmstad_01
Pic by Patrícia Peres

After setting up the stage and instruments for Roxette, those almost 15000 people in the audience couldn’t wait anymore to hear the first tunes of Sleeping In My Car and have much fun during the next almost 2 hours. When Roxette came up on stage you just saw on both Marie’s and Per’s face that it was going to be a fantastic show. Being on home turf, enjoying their home crowd was all written on their faces. The band was in great mood and in top top top shape. Everyone was really on a high. Marie was shining like a real star! She was the pearl and the audience painted their love all over her world. You could feel everyone was grateful to see her on stage and cheered her during the whole concert. Per was very much into being on stage tonight. His presence was incredibly strong with all the Gessle moves and his way of performing. Both him and Marie acted a lot with the crowd, having eye contact with the fans in the front and animating them during the sing along parts which turned out to be very loud tonight. The band was also very active. Christoffer was running around like hell with his guitar, having his cool ”fights” with Per, getting kicked in the ass by Per again. There was now a new funny moment, when Per touched Christoffer’s hat while starting with Crash! Boom! Bang! Magnus was having his Baladas en español moments while charming us with his bass playing. Dea was animating the audience very enthusiastically and she was supporting Marie the lovely way she always does. Regarding Pelle and Clarence, who are always in the background, I just want to mention that without their amazing drum and fabulous keyboard playing this band is just nothing. They enjoyed being there on Örjans Vall’s stage very much.

One of the highlights of the night was It Must Have Been Love with the ’80s band intro from Per, remembering the funny hairdos and shoulder pads from those years, as well as the fantastic bands like Roxette, Milli Vanilli and Modern Talking. Another highlight was Watercolours In The Rain / Paint. Marie and Dea together can only mean a perfect duet!

roxette_in_halmstad_02
Pic by Patrícia Peres

All the international fans brought their balloons, so there were many and people in the crowd loved playing with them during Joyride. After the song the band went off the stage and the only strange thing during the whole show to me was when there were those appr. 5 minutes while they were away. It felt like the audience wasn’t sure they would come back and wasn’t sure they should be cheering. We in the front were very loud, as usual, but it took some time until the rest of the crowd joined in shouting ”en gång till” or screaming. Fortunately, the band heard it quite well, so they got back to us and oh what a Listen To Your Heart performance it was as the first extra song! How Marie ended it was out of this world!

The uptempo songs, mainly How Do You Do!, She’s Got Nothing On (But The Radio), Dressed For Success and Dangerous got the audience dance and clap along during the whole songs while singing along loud and The Look at the end left the crowd wanting more. When Per said goodbye at the end of the show, he shouted in the mic in Swedish: ”See you soon again! We are very sure about it!”

Marie got 2 heaters on stage and this time it was again BoJo himself who tested if they worked well. In the end only one of them was working during the whole show. But the weather was really nice and rather warm, so we hope that 1 functioning heater was really enough for Marie.

Many in the crowd expected Gyllene Tider to appear on stage as a surprise, but those who are following Roxette and the related artists closely knew that Micke Syd had to be on stage with his Syd & Ekman project at another place, so it was predictable the fab five won’t be seen together in Halmstad tonight. BUT! We weren’t left without a GT tune! Christoffer played ”När vi två blir en” as the local intro to Joyride and it got a fab crowd reaction. We all loved it!

Per after the show:

HALMSTAD UPDATE: Yea! Very nice show at Örjans Vall. Very nice indeed. This place is so cool, just by the water, and tonight our home crowd was in terrific shape. Around 15000 joined the joyride and made a lot of beautiful noise! Vids tomorrow! Cheers, P.

Next stop is Gothenburg on 24th July.

 

Articles and photos

Hallandsposten:

SVT during the waiting time
SVT concert cuts

Videos

Sleeping In My Car / The Big L.
Spending My Time / Crash! Boom! Bang!
Crush On You
The Look

Setlist

roxette_in_halmstad_03
Halmstad setlist – Pic by Patrícia Peres

Sleeping In My Car
The Big L.
Stars
Spending My Time
Crash! Boom! Bang!
Crush On You
She’s Got Nothing On (But The Radio)
The Heart Shaped Sea
Watercolours In The Rain / Paint
Fading Like A Flower
How Do You Do!
It Must Have Been Love
Dressed For Success
Dangerous
Joyride (intro: När vi två blir en)

Extra
Listen To Your Heart
The Look

 

Interview with Åsa Gessle in Hallandsposten

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asa_gessle_in_hallandspostenThere is a long and very nice interview with Åsa Gessle in Hallandsposten today, both in printed format and on their website. You will also find some cool pics of Fru Nordin in there. Interview is done by Christian Albinsson, pics by Anders Andersson.

Åsa talks mainly about Hotel Tylösand, her role in the hotel’s life, her designer career, her relationship to Per, as well as her love towards Halmstad, life around Roxette and her filming on tours.

The article mentions Åsa and Per acquired Hotel Tylösand relatively cheaply in 1995 together with businessman Björn Nordstrand. Åsa says they re-invest a lot into the hotel each year. She finds it fun that the hotel is constantly growing and renewed, because she always had a dream to run a hotel, although she thought that it would rather be a small boutique hotel in the countryside than a large conference center.

Regarding Per, Åsa says he is more interested in the art hanging on the hotel’s walls and what kind of wines are served at the restaurants, design ideas, appearance etc. are more Åsa’s thing.

In the Hallandsposten interview she mentions there are plans to create a sun terrace on the roof top of the spa building. Mrs. Gessle says many of her favorite hotels abroad have such a sun terrace with a bar. She is very proud of her babies, Leif’s Bar & Grill and Bettans Bar and says she feels herself at home there.

She talks about how she ended up in Halmstad 33 years ago, in 1982, when she moved to there to open a clothes shop with her then-boyfriend. Their relationship came to an end and she was introduced to Per by a common friend of theirs, Lars Nordin.

I already knew who Per was, but Gyllene Tider were not exactly my idols, so to speak. I had also lived a few years abroad and had not really kept track of Per’s career.

As Åsa tells Hallandsposten, love came approximately a month later, when Per sent her a letter written in tongue-in-cheek style, which truly characterizes Per. He wrote about her dog and if she could kindly leave the dog at home if he had a chance to invite Åsa for dinner. Since then they are a couple. By the way, Fru Nordin says Per still likes writing handwritten letters.

As written in the Hallandsposten article, Åsa planned everything around the Roxette trips. She and Per were travelling together since 1989, stayed at many hotels and in the beginning they could see less of the cities they stayed in, but nowadays it’s quieter and they have time to stop and collect impressions.

Besides organizing the travelling and gathering inspiration from different hotels, Åsa has always had a camera with herself. The Jonas Åkerlund film (Roxette Diaries) we already wrote about will soon be completed, however, it’s still not decided where to broadcast it.

Hallandsposten writes about Halmstad life being perfect for Åsa, she loves living there, while Stockholm suits Per more. He has more social life in the Swedish capital.

I also like to go out and dance to dance bands, last time about a week ago in Västerhagen. I still have sore muscles. Dancing to dance bands is not something I do with Per. 🙂

We’re going home to Halmstad to gather strength. I love to go to Prince Bertil’s path, which I do almost every day. It’s awesome that new things are happening there all the time and the landscape changes along the way. My favorite spot is Tylöbäck where there is a kind of magical atmosphere, although I think one should clean up a little of all the old trees…

Another favorite spot is the garden where Åsa and Per like just to sit and enjoy peace, and to have breakfast in the special breakfast corner.

It’s nice to have a little routine. Per always drinks filter coffee at certain times, like an old lady, ha ha.

In the interview Åsa talks about her designer career. It started in 2007 when there was a housing exhibition in Halmstad and Lars Nordin asked her if she would decorate one of the apartments. First she said no, because they were in the middle of a tour, but she now mentions the real reason was that she thought it was a little scary. She accepted the challenge in the end and she used By Rydéns lamps in that apartment, so she got in good contact with them. Now she is designing lamps for them. The theme is love and peace and the peace mark is a central element of the design. There are 1 or 2 lamps each season designed by Åsa, who has learned it step by step that it is important to believe in and challenge yourself.

For Åsa, it is obvious that love makes us better people, and her message is that we should be kinder to each other and be happy for each other’s success.

Per starring in Linnea Henriksson’s Halmstad video

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If you attended any of the concerts during the Gyllene Tider tour in 2013, you surely remember Linnea Henriksson. She was the support act at all concerts and she did a fantastic job. I think many GT fans became fans of Linnea as well during last summer.

She released her latest album ”Du söker bråk, jag kräver dans” in February and for the song ”Halmstad” she did a video. The video was shot on 15th May in Aleskogen and at Västra stranden in Halmstad.

As Linnea said to Hallandsposten: ”The song is a declaration of love to my hometown and I love Västra stranden. The view of the sea and the harbor are unbeatable and Aleskogen was a refuge to me when I was little. There is a mystery in the forest, you walk among the trees and suddenly, you are at the sea.”

Why we are writing about this video is that its premiere was today and Per Gessle appears in it for some seconds at the very beginning. After Mr G did his part in the video, he posted 2 pics of himself in the woods. The black & white one is close to what you can see in the video in color. (Photos taken from Roxette Official.)

PG_LH_20140515  PG_Aleskogen_20140515

 

THURSDAY UPDATE: Just did my part in Linnea Henriksson’s new video clip “Halmstad”. Fab song + outstanding video! Check it out! /P.

THURSDAY UPDATE #2: Out in the Halmstad woods w/ Linnea! Nice. /P.

 

It is indeed an outstanding video and it’s so colorful and cheerful as Linnea herself is. Congrats!

 

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOIXeGGFH0A

Marie’s tour: Göteborg and Halmstad video bootlegs

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As far as we know, there is no plan to record any of the concerts during Marie Fredriksson’s tour for a DVD, however, after being in the crowd at 2 of (so far) the best concerts (Göteborg and Halmstad), I definitely think there should be a live DVD. I’m sure many fans agree with me. Maybe it’s still not too late… Stockholm will most probably be one of the best shows as well, if not the best, since the most international fans are going to attend that concert. If there is no possibility, we will of course be very happy with a live CD at least. 😉

Until then we have YouTube and thanks to the fans who recorded those 2 awesome shows, Göteborg (15/03/2014) and Halmstad (21/03/2014) concerts are available as video bootlegs.

We already shared it on our Facebook site, but I must include it here, too: click here to watch the complete megafabulous Göteborg show! I still think that show would have been a perfect one to record for a DVD. Thanks heaps again for sharing, Alexander!

Now the videos for Halmstad are also available, so you can watch Marie’s and the band’s top shape performance and hear the fantastic crowd reactions. My personal fave from the videos is Bara för en dag (screenshot is also from that part). Just look at Marie’s facial expressions and gestures. Lovely! Thanks a million, Nikolett Zentai and Monika for sharing the videos!

Marie_Hstd_03

 

01. Så stilla så långsamt, Kom vila hos mig, Bara för en dag
02. Det regnar igen, Sista sommarens vals
03. Ber bara en gång, Sparvöga, Ett hus vid havet, Ett bord i solen
04. Så skimrande var aldrig havet, Ännu doftar kärlek, Så länge det lyser mittemot
05. Om du såg mig nu
06. Efter stormen, Den sjunde vågen
07. Mellan sommar och höst, Den bästa dagen
08. Tro

 

 

The tour goes on! Next show is on 4th April in Borås!