Arena Riga, March 15th

a-ha played the last two concerts of the East European leg of the tour last week, in Riga, Latvia on March 15th and Minsk, Belarus on March 17th. These were also the last two concerts with guest vocalist Tini Flaat Mykland, who will be replaced by Anneli Drecker in the UK this week.

The 20-song setlist in Riga and Minsk was the same as St. Petersburg and Moscow, the only slight difference being that “Foot Of The Mountain” and “You Are The One” were switched around. They are still only playing two songs from Cast In Steel; “Living At The End Of The World” and “Under The Makeup”.

In Minsk, everything seemed to indicate that “Giving Up The Ghost” would return as the opener, as they used that specific intro music and video animation – but suddenly they started playing “I’ve Been Losing You” instead. Very odd.

Incidentally, several of the Apparatjik-style animations used on this tour, including the “Giving Up The Ghost” video, seem to have been created by Jonas Bjerre.

The venue in Riga was barely half-full, judging from some of the pictures and videos, but the turnout was better in Minsk and the audience and media reception on this tour seems to have been quite good overall.

Video clips from Riga:
Stay On These Roads    Velvet    Foot Of The Mountain
The Sun Always Shines On TV    The Living Daylights
Take On Me    55 minutes from the concert

Video clips from Minsk:
I’ve Been Losing You / Cry Wolf    Move To Memphis    Scoundrel Days
Crying In The Rain / Mother Nature Goes To Heaven
Velvet    Lifelines    Hunting High and Low    Under The Makeup

Other links:
Riga photo gallery (tvnet.lv)
Riga photo gallery (kasjauns.lv)
Minsk photo gallery (dosug.by)
Minsk photo gallery (metalheads.by)
Minsk TV report (YouTube)
Minsk TV report 2 (YouTube)
Meeting fans in Moscow (YouTube)
Moscow photo gallery: Part 1   Part 2   Part 3 (radiogrom.com)
St. Petersburg photo gallery (livejournal.com)
St. Petersburg photo gallery 2 (sub-cult.ru)