Per is publishing official "En händig man" tour videos on YouTube. So far, two videos have been released: first one from the Halmstad premiere and the second one from the Linköping concert. The videos are 1-2 minutes long and consist of clips from backstage, soundcheck and live concert.

HALMSTAD - Before 17,800 people (out of 19,000 tickets available,) Per entered the stage at Örjans vall in Halmstad yesterday. Unfortunately there was a heavy drizzle over Halmstad during the evening. Per was in a great mood and exclaimed "This is the best band I've ever been in. It was also the best tour premiere of mine ever!" Per continues "This band is actually so tight that for the second week of rehearsals we only worked on switching the set list around…"

The concert itself was very Gyllene Tider oriented, with 10 out of 23 songs. The rest consisted of seven "En händig man" songs and six from "Mazarin." Per was a bit upset with the rain as it made it hard to move on stage. "Once with Roxette I ran into Jonas Isacsson when the stage was wet. I smashed into his guitar!"

The band was in top shape. MP was sharp, and looked sharp in his nice tie, Helena was cute (and sang well) and Clarence hit every key.

The stage was fabulous. A great light show with two rather big video screens that showed what was happening on stage with some effects added. The show started by the way with a 40 minute video showing Swedish artists over the years, and ended with Per's new "secret track" which I won't tell what it is. The video wasn't shown though.

Biggest song: Sommartider probably, the sing-a-long must've been heard for miles!

Many fans from all over the world attended the concert; Russians, Norwegians, Finns, Swedes you name it.

The set list

Juni, juli, augusti
(Hon vill ha) Puls
Pratar med min müsli (hur det än verkar)
En händig man
På promenad genom stan
Vilket håll du än går
Hannas kärlekspil
Det hjärta som brinner
En sten vid en sjö i en skog
När alla vännerna gått hem
Jag skulle vilja tänka en underbar tanke
Kung av sand

Band presentation

Här kommer alla känslorna (på en och samma gång)
Födelsedag
Fru Nordin
Spegelboll
Gå & fiska!

Extras

Om du kommer ihåg
Tycker om när du tar på mej
Ljudet av ett annat hjärta
Ska vi älska så ska vi älska till Buddy Holly

Extra extras

Sommartider
Min hälsning

HALMSTAD - The Daily Roxette is back at the crime scene - at Leif's Lounge in Halmstad. This time it's for Per's "sneak preview" of "En händig man på turné." There are several hundred people there, among them Freddie Ljungberg, Martin Dahlin and Börje Salming, or should I say as Per puts it "All the guys with their own underwear label is here!" There are also some 20 South American Roxette fans here. And The Daily Roxette of course!

The concert starts at 22:15, a bit fashionably late, it's Per. The whole place rocks with the opening number "Hannas kärlekspil." Per and the band plays 11 songs, and skips one. All of the songs are great, but one stands out; "Jag skulle vilja tänka en underbar tanke" which turns into exactly what I had imagined. A show stopper that keeps on going!

TDR meets Per after the concert, where he and the band are presented a triple platinum award for "En händig man." Per is very satisfied with the concert "It felt great, everyone tells me I should do more club gigs." Naturally TDR asks why he doesn't. "Actually it seems I will. I wanted to do this thing for SOAP down in Europe, but now 'En händig man' goes so well in Norway that we are planning a club tour there. We may even pop over to Finland and Denmark," Per says.

Everything seems set for the big premiere tomorrow.

The set list:

1 Hannas kärlekspil
2 Det hjärta som brinner
3 En sten vid en sjö i en skog
4 En händig man
5 På promenad genom stan
6 Juni, juli, augusti
7 Jag skulle vilja tänka en underbar tanke
8 Här kommer alla känslorna
9 Födelsedag
10 Gå & fiska!

Extras

11 Fru Nordin *
12 Sommartider

* They skipped Fru Nordin as an extra for reasons unknown.

The drummer most often seen in Roxette's band, Pelle Alsing, has been playing with a new group called Moosters. They just released an album called "Executioner" in Sweden.

Pelle is very excited about this project but says that his love and devotion for Roxette will not be compromised by this. He calls their style rockin' blues. If you would like to hear what Pelle has been working on during the last two years visit their MySpace page.

In another news, the guitarist of Gyllene Tider, co-owner of the Roxette demo studio Tits & Ass, Mats "MP" Persson, is touring in March with The Cadillac Band. Three concerts have already been confirmed, one of them being in a church in Stockholm.

HAMBURG - The first thing this reporter notices, when I arrive at the Color Line Arena in Hamburg the day before the Bravo gala on Saturday, is a group of Tokio Hotel fans.

  “For whom did you come?” asks one of the girls. She isn’t much older than 15 and fixes her makeup every three minutes. “Roxette,” I say and her reply is clear: “Who?”

  It continues like that the whole day, as fans hope to for a chance to see the various groups arrive for soundcheck and technical rehearsals. Nobody’s there for Roxette.

  It’s the same thing on Saturday. About four hours before the show starts, the Tokio Hotel fans are screaming their lungs out and waiting for their heros to appear on the red carpet. At first I too am waiting behind a barrier with my friends before planning to enter the arena through the press entrance. There’s no possibility to actually see the red carpet, but we do see the black Bravo cars labeled “Cars for Stars.” The crowd of people outside – more than 75% are younger than 16 – are simply hysterical, even though hardly anyone can see anything happening on the red carpet. You couldn’t even see that there’s somebody in a car. But luck is with us this time. My friends do see Marie before the show starts.

  At about 5:45 pm Roxette step onto the red carpet. Per, Marie and the band… far away from us. But for Marie, it was only to make her entrance, as only ten minutes later she is sitting in a small car, driving back to the hotel again with manager Marie Dimberg at her side (only to drive back to the venue again two hours later). It’s luck because they need to stop right behind a big barricade to get on the street. Marie sees one of the posters my friend had made, which greets her with the words “Welcome back Marie”. She looks at it for quite a long time, smiles and then she’s gone.

  At 8:45 pm the show has already been going for about two hours. In the press area, everybody’s talking about Marie… not Tokio Hotel. It’s obvious that in the eyes of the press, she is THE star of the evening, and it’s a foretaste of what one of the biggest German Sunday newspapers, Bild am Sonntag, will be writing the next day about her: “Roxette star sings herself back into [people’s] hearts.”

  Working meticulously, the photographers sort through the pictures they took of Roxette on the red carpet and are waiting for the performance and asking wondering amongst themselves how it will be. As a press reporter myself, I had the schedule and knew that it won’t be too much longer, so I quickly decide to go back to my seat in the hall. I know that they will play on the left stage and I too wait with anticipation. Afterwards my friends – who are sitting everywhere and nowhere in the hall – tell me that they could see when Marie and Per stepped on the stage and thought that they recognized that both of them were quite nervous. The only thing I notice after host Kai Pflaume has welcomed Roxette, is that the audience is suddenly getting louder.

  The audience jumps to their feet only a few seconds after the intro of “The Look” has started. Everyone seems to begin clapping to the beat and the performance becomes one of the few highlights of the evening. Now the mood is much better than it was all through the last two hours. It’s amazing! And Marie especially seems to notice it. Boldly, she finally conquers the whole stage. Even the celebrities in the front rows stand up as the music fades away and they too are clapping their hands.

  Directly after the Roxette performance I leave the hall. In front of the entrance, I meet the Tokio Hotel girl that I had met the day before. She runs over to me happily and says “Marie is her name, right? The female singer of Roxette? I DO know her. She has short blonde hair and an amazing voice.” Somehow she’s had this epiphany even though she didn’t have a ticket for the show and therefore missed seeing the fabulous live comeback of Roxette. Read more…

HAMBURG - While Roxette’s actual performance will still be pre-recorded, Per and Marie are now both expected to take the stage this month at the Color Line Arena in Hamburg, Germany when Bravo magazine celebrates its 50th Anniversary with a live three-hour television event.

  A notice posted yesterday on Roxette.se, the duo’s own site, indicated that Roxette will “make a live appearance on stage at the actual event on the 21st.”

  And Bravo themselves yesterday released this message:

Dear Roxette-fans,
We have positive news! After intensive discussions, we have today received the definitive yes: Roxette will be on stage at the big ’50 Years BRAVO’ anniversary gala on 21 October 2006. We’re very happy to be able to bring all fans this news.

COLOGNE - While Roxette will indeed be performing as part of the “50 Years Of Bravo” television special, The Daily Roxette has learned from EMI Germany that this segment of the show will be pre-recorded and not live and that Roxette will not be physically present at the gala.

  “We don’t want to disappoint fans who buy tickets for the show because they think they will see Roxette live on stage,” said Christian Wißmann of EMI Music Germany to TDR late this afternoon.

  Per and Marie’s segment will be recorded a day earlier in Hamburg, and then spliced into the show. “The television viewer will not be informed that Roxette was not actually there at the actual event,” says Wißmann, “but we want to let the fans know this.” Logistical conflicts prevent Roxette from being there to perform live during the show.

  The show will be broadcast on October 21 on German TV channel Pro7.

Roxette will be one of the three headline acts of BRAVO magazine’s 50-year gala this fall. Together with other acts like Nena (99 Luftballons) and Die fantastischen Vier, Roxette will perform live in Germany for the first time in five years!

  The show will be a time machine through five decades of pop culture. The “50 Jahre BRAVO” gala will take place at Color Line Arena in Hamburg on October 21st at 19:00 CET and… it’s possible to buy tickets.

  The show will be broadcast during prime time on channel “Pro Sieben” at 21:15 the same day.

EDITOR’S NOTE: The PR machine may have taken awhile to get its gears cranking, but the story that Roxette is back together again – and will be performing live on this show – has gone international. The Brazilian newspaper O Globo carries a story today, at least in their online edition (see link below). Roxette remains a well-known name in Brazil, due in large part to Roxette songs having been used for the soundtracks of television novellas (soap operas). – LEO

• Bravo 50 (In German)
• Presseportal (In German)
• O Globo (In Portuguese)

STOCKHOLM (UPDATED) - Earlier tonight Per performed “Här kommer alla känslorna”, and the classic Gyllene Tider-song “Kung av sand” from 1996, on the TV-show Allsång på Skansen. Per was also awarded a platinum award (60,000 copies) for almost 100,000 sold copies of “Mazarin”. Per looked very surprised and pleased. On being asked about the audience tonight he exclaimed “The best! The best!”


  Per Gessle has been Allsång på Skansen’s dream guest for many many years. This time around Per felt that he had something to contribute to the program.

 Besides Per, the other artists who performed at Allsång were Buddaboys (Eva Dahlgren and Mija and Greta Folkesson), who sang “Budda is a girl” and “Det var dans borti vägen”, Jerry Williams & The Boppers and After Shave.


  The program will be broadcast again on SVT1 on June 28th at 17.00 CET and July 2nd at 12.10 CET.

• Allsång på Skansen
• Buddaboys

COPENHAGEN - Tomorrow, Tuesday, you have the opportunity to chat live with Per Gessle himself!
Enter http://live.jubii.dk/ and you can chat with Per beginning at 5 pm local time.

  You must log in 15 minutes before the chat begins! As has been the case previously with such an event, you can expect a combination of Danish/Swedish and English.