The last time the PLECtionary got updated was in August 2015, right before the last show of the European tour leg. Now one tour leg later, an update is due again. We hoped for new picks for the South African shows, but we couldn’t be sure there would be any new plectrums until Per posted the photo of the guitar pick they designed especially for South Africa (Roxette FB, Per IG, Roxette IG).
It wasn’t clear at first sight whether it was only one pick and Mr. G showed the 2 sides of it or it was 2 different picks, but soon it turned out they got back to the roots, making it more limited, so it’s only one pick with the South African flag on one side and GESSLE ON THE ROXXX on the other side. Looking good! Haute couture, as the master says.
Sandra was there in South Africa and she could now take photo of it to include the plec (No. 107) in the PLECtionary. More than that, thanks to her we can also add Per’s guitar technician’s, Micke N-S’s new pick (No. 108) and in the meantime Sandra could obtain one of the Night of the Proms plectrums (No. 26) she had been looking for since a long time, so it’s now in the PLECtionary as well.
Besides these 3 new additions, you will find a separate section for the misprinted picks. The misprinted ones mean something went wrong during the production and e.g. the design or the text is missing on one side. With this update you see 2 misprinted plecs, No. 77 and No. 96.
The last time we updated the PLECtionary was 5 months ago. The XXX tour’s European leg did deserve some new Per Gessle guitar picks, so it’s time for another update. Mr. G posted on Roxette’s Facebook page on 28th March that they had just ordered new plecs for the then upcoming tour leg. The picks were ready in time and he posted a photo of the new beauties some days before the first European gig in Milan.
Aaaah at last! My new guitar picks!!! Enjoy and grab one flying like a rocket at the shows, folks!!! /P.
Reading the word rocket I thought immediately of a real gem on The Per Gessle Archives and this went on and on in my head ”Picks are everywhere / catch a rocket in the air / be ready when they’re there / like a rocket in the air!” Oh well… Grabbing a flying plec is really not that easy, but not impossible at all. There are many lucky Roxers who will surely pop til they drop having a Gessle pick in their collection and there are many who still can’t believe they obtained a pick touched by the hand of Per.
I thought it was convenient to say a big THANK YOU to:
….
DUNLOP CUSTOM PICKS
for those custom made picks I do my best to spread around the globe with mixed results. Hey, you’re pretty good at catchin’!! To my defense, those red acoustic guitar picks are so thin, they won’t fly…..
Sandra Knospe is of course both handy and lucky, so the PLECtionary gets its update. Sandra found the time in between heavy touring and her also busy non-Rox-World-related life and now before the last show this year in Europe she took the photos and shared the trivia she knows about the plectrums. Check out the PLECtionary and look for the guitar picks No. 100-105! It also includes a new print of the latest Professor Lundquist pick. At No. 157 you’ll find another new item, a Mister Magnus pick. You know, he’s the viking member of the band whose fave Rox album is Baladas en español. Vikings don’t need customized plectrums. Haha.
Huge thanx again for the updates, Sandra! Your collection looks more and more eXXXquisite!
So, one more gig is left for this year and you have the chance to confirm that Per is right when he says we are pretty good at catchin’. Once you catch a pick you have to take care of it though. The print on them is a little bit dangerous. Good luck, you all!
Pic by Sandra Knospe
Per is talking about the plecs and more in this interview.
If you are interested in reading some more about Sandra’s collection, check out the interview with her.
As we mentioned it in our latest review, Sandra Knospe celebrated her 200th gig in Amsterdam 2 days ago. 200! What an impressive number! Hard to beat it except if you are member of the band or at least the crew. 😉 It’s not only Roxette, but also Marie and Per solo, as well as Gyllene Tider, but most of the shows she attended were Roxette gigs. She followed the band from South America to Australia, but being a German girl, she of course went to the most shows in Europe. And why I use past tense here I have no clue… she followed the band from here to there and she’ll never stop. Well, she was truly born to follow.
When Sandra enjoyed her 100th show she surely didn’t expect she would have such a special treatment 100 concerts later. The crew offered her to see the venue from a different perspective and showed her around the stage. Then on the concert the band mentioned her anniversary. What a night!
Here are Sandra’s thoughts about her 200th gig:
A Rox gig with a different perspective
Pic by Sandra Knospe
Another day another concert. After Rox had played in the famous L’Olympia just the other night it was Amsterdam’s turn now. Approaching the venue at around 5pm I have to say I was surprised to see way less people queuing in front of it than usually. There were two entries, one for people who had bought the expensive Early Entrance tix and one for the remaining concert visitors. I expected to see more “hardcores” in any of the queues, but I guess some just decided to come late since it didn’t make sense to queue the whole day with a normal ticket and no big chances of front row anymore. And other Roxers probably have decided to skip the concert completely and boycott the EE ticket policy from Live Nation. So maybe one doesn’t need to wonder that it felt a bit different outside this time. And in a way it continued inside.
The entrance for EE ticket owners was around 6.15pm and the others followed shortly afterwards. I can’t really tell how the entry was outside, because a friend of mine and I were lucky enough to get to see the stage from the other side of the fence while the doors opened. That evening I celebrated my anniversary of 200 concerts including Rox, P&M solo and GT and a very kind person suggested that maybe it would be interesting for me to see the things from a different perspective. And it was!! I am very happy and extremely thankful that we got this little special treatment!!
After that my friend and I found our places in the front and we were eager to see the show. Some chit chat with people around us and then Eskobar started to play. As a fan who has seen a few shows you can already sense during the supporting act what mood the crowd is in and if they will get infected by the vibe and atmosphere on stage. At least to 90% you can guess that already before Rox enter the stage. And this time it felt as if it would be a bit of a tough job to get the crowd into it. And it turned out to be like that. Of course Rox got a warm welcome when they finally entered the stage and people surely clapped and sang along to the choruses of the oh so well known hits, but in between it felt a bit quiet and the enthusiasm was, well, let’s say limited compared to all other shows of this leg so far. But that only goes for the audience. On stage the glorious 7 had a top night. Marie delivering a great performance, Per bouncing, spinning and dancing around. Lyrics where they belonged. Only Per with a cock-eyed brain once, when singing this line twice in a row during “Crush on You”. And speaking of Per I have to take the opportunity to mention here that there is a noticeable change since this leg in the way Per interacts with the audience. There is much more contact with the people in the front rows than before. Keeping eye contact for more than just a millisecond and checking out the first few rows quite often is not that usual for him. It feels nice to see him being so relaxed and acting and reacting to the crowd in a more open way on stage. And it’s not just me who has noticed it. So whatever has happened that made him change this I hope he keeps it and I am sure all other Roxers hope that, too. Because it adds some extra kix to every gig.
The band was in top shape as well. What I really like a lot is that meanwhile the short dialogues on stage are alternating. It’s not always the same every night and it looks and sounds more spontaneous and not that practiced anymore. Really funny. They should keep that. It adds a lot to the atmosphere. And if not for the normal concert visitors then for sure for the hardcore Roxers. OK, I have to admit I am probably not very objective now since I got a little extra mentioning on stage that night. And THAT surely made my anniversary even more special!! So unexpected and freaking amazing. You simply have to love them all. Not only for the music. But before going into raptures now I’ll rather stick to the review.
I enjoyed the concert to the full and the energy and mood on stage made it exciting for me. So after the gig I was all smiles. The only question I’ve asked myself was “Would it have been different audience wise without EE tix?” I tend to say yes, because I think more hardcores would have shown up and been in front row, partying and jumping all the time. But with 150,-€ per ticket one simply has to cross out some shows when you have planned to see them more than just once during their tour. So I really hope that EE ticket policy won’t become a regular thing. But that’s just my personal impression. And even if most of the visitors weren’t physically active, the general opinion of the people who were standing next to me was positive. They all enjoyed the concert. The only thing some mentioned was the feeling that the concert was too short. Well, what can I say? Surely, I agree on that and all of us would love to get more than 17 songs on a gig, but nevertheless, we enjoyed what we’ve got to the max. So thanks for playing and cheers to the next 200!!
The audience could have been more active, but anyway, even if there is a standing still crowd, you can always be sure there is at least one person jumping in the front during the complete show. And it’s Sandra Knospe. Indeed, to the next 200, Sandra!
The last time the PLECtionary got updated was eXXXactly 3 months ago today. Let’s celebrate it with adding some more picks to it!
Since the 2014 picks weren’t really used (check in the PLECtionary, why), it was evident Per needed new plectrums for the New Zealand – Australia leg of the tour. He shared a photo of his new guitar picks one day before the Auckland show. We could all agree on these were fitting NZ-Oz quite much and that they are hilarious with the funny texts on them.
Sandra Knospe decided to see the band live in Australia in February and during the concerts she attended she could collect all the latest Per Gessle plecs, as well as one Christoffer pick and one Micke N-S plectrum. After getting back home, she found the time to take the pics of all the beauties and tell the trivia she knows about them, so 8 plectrums are added this time to her already stunning collection. Check out the PLECtionary and look for the guitar picks No. 92-99!
There are plenty of the picks produced for NZ-Oz, so maybe there are enough left for at least the European leg of the tour. The designs are fitting Australia more, but of course we’re happy to catch them in Europe, too. 😉 (Update on 28th March: Per says there will be new picks for Europe.) 7 weeks left until the tour goes on! Woohoo!
Huge thanx for the updates, Sandra! We’re eXXXtremely happy that your collection is growing and growing!
Photo by Sandra Knospe
Per is talking about the plecs and more in this interview.
If you are interested in reading some more about Sandra’s collection, check out the interview with her.
When we first got to see the 2014 editions of Per’s guitar picks on the producer’s Instagram account (pic 1, pic 2), we got very excited. They all look so hot ’n’ cool! Then the tour started and besides being extremely happy about seeing our most beloved band live again, we expected to see the new picks live, too. During the Russian leg of the tour fans were posting pictures of plectrums they could catch at the concerts and we could see that besides some new ones, most of the picks they could obtain were from 2012. We could think the amount produced of the new plecs was so few vs. Per’s pick-throwing habits that he ran out of those 2014 picks very fast. But it wasn’t the case.
A nice collection. But where are the pix from 2014????? /P.
Haha… Yeah… We’d been also wondering, because we saw a lot of 2014 picks appearing e.g. on Tradera, already before the tour started and we were quite sad about the fact that they ended up in traders’ hands, while we couldn’t see too many of them on Per’s mic stand on tour and he played even less of them.
The producer shared the info after we asked them and they saw the PLECtionary that the picks are quite exclusive, not too many of them were produced. That was also confirmed by Mr G and Micke N-S. 100 pieces were made of each 2014 picks, except for the Rox-Jet plec, of which 400 exist. Per already mentioned it in the guitar pick interview that they should slow down a bit and produce less picks for a tour. Now it seems they sticked to that idea of keeping the picks more exclusive.
There was another thing Per mentioned in the plectrum interview and this is how the actual update of the PLECtionary is possible. When talking about Sandra’s collection, he said:
She deserves the best. The best and the complete. I consider it a mission to help her find Plectrum-Nirvana.
Photo by Sandra Knospe
And how awesome the way is how he is helping her! He sent the missing 2014 guitar picks to Sandra in a mail not much after he posted about the PLECtionary. Wow! I mean W.O.W.!
Santa Per or Gessle Claus, call him as you wish, he is the most fantastic and most fan-friendly artist in the whole wide world! And he really knows how to make the fans the happiest people in the universe. I can only confirm it.
I don’t even have to mention how Sandra was jumping of joy when she saw Per’s mail in her mailbox. She also wants to thank Mr G for the awesome gift, so here is a message from Sandra to Per:
A truly unexpected and special Xmas present!! What a treat!! Not only that I finally can add a set of these beauties to my collection, but also I’ve got lots of Xmas presents for my Rox-friends now. A big thanks to the generous and kind donator! Hallelujah! You rock, Per!
He ROX, indeed! And Sandra, too! Thanx a million for all your efforts and work with the updates again! We’re extremely happy for you and glad to see your collection is growing.
Since Per sent more picks to Sandra and let her share them with her Rox-friends, she also thought about giving a chance to a wider group of Roxers to get these rare picks. Huge thanx for offering them for a contest, Sandra!
Besides adding the 2014 picks (No. 86-91), the PLECtionary has also been updated with some info regarding quantities produced of picks where it is known and since the latest update, the misspelled, rare Woddy plec (No. 10) could also be added to Sandra’s collection.
Read the trivia from Sandra at the new picks to get to know why Per doesn’t really use those plectrums on tour! What will we see on the mic stand in 2015? Will there be a new production with the same designs or will there be some completely new layouts? Are there still so many 2012 picks left that Per will use them until he runs out of them? The answers are not known at this point. Let’s see what happens next year!
CONTEST!!! Here is your great chance to get hold of a ROX-JET / PER AIR HAIR – CAPTAIN GESSLE guitar pick (No. 91)!In order to participate, answer the following questions (correct answers are added next to the Qs on 3rd January):
How many Rox world related guitar picks are there altogether in the PLECtionary at the moment? – 150 (143+7)
How many different 2014 guitar picks were designed for the XXX anniversary tour? – 6
What is written on the front and back of plec No. 10? (Please, spell it how you see it, otherwise we can’t accept your answer. 😉 ) – Text front: HEJ DIN TOK JAG ÄLSKAR DIG; Text back: WODDY
Send an e-mail with your name, address(so we can send the guitar pick in case you win) and the answers to the questions to rxbcontests@gmail.com until 23:59 CET on 2nd January 2015. The 10 lucky winners will be announced a few days later.
Good luck!
Contest terms and conditions:
– In order to participate, you have to send an e-mail to rxbcontests@gmail.com with your name, address and the answers to the 3 questions. We will consider all e-mails we receive until 23:59 CET on 2nd January 2015 with complete information.
– 10 winners will be picked randomly among those who have participated and sent the correct answers.
– You can only participate once, any attempt to participate twice will lead to your disqualification.
– Prizes won’t be paid out in cash. Prizes will be sent by standard mail only once (so basically, if the envelope gets lost, we won’t be able to send a replacement).
– Winners will be announced on this website, on our Facebook page and will also be notified per e-mail. You’ll be required to reply to the e-mail confirming your address.
– Roxetteblog.com will not enter into any correspondence regarding the result of the contest and is not liable for any damages, loss or expenses that may result in connection to the prize.
– All submitted data will only be used for the purpose of the contest and in case you are one of the lucky winners, to send you the prize.
Update on 3rd January:
The 10 lucky winners are:
Rosina Marmion – Uruguay
Agata Giunta – Italy
Gaby Hildebrandt – Germany
Jorge Diaz – Argentina
Nikolett Zentai – Hungary
Ilya Volkov – Germany
Kersti Liivamäe – Estonia
Helen Franklin – England
Mariana Gumuzio – Spain
Remco Verhaaf – The Netherlands
The winners have been informed via e-mail and were announced on our Facebook page, too.
It wasn’t clear at first sight whether it was only one pick and Mr. G showed the 2 sides of it or it was 2 different picks, but soon it turned out they got back to the roots, making it more limited, so it’s only one pick with the South African flag on one side and GESSLE ON THE ROXXX on the other side. Looking good! Haute couture, as the master says.
