Archive for August, 2017

Trondheim concert announced for 2018

a-ha at Lerkendal Stadium in Trondheim, 2010
(Picture by Jakob)

A fourth Norwegian outdoor concert has been announced for next year’s a-ha world tour, following dates in Kongsberg, Ålesund and Bodø:

15 August 2018: Sverresborg Museum, Trondheim, Norway

The Sverresborg Museum is one of Norway’s largest open air museums, and has a capacity of 10,000 people for concert events.

“We are really looking forward to returning to Trondheim. It’s been way too long, and Sverresborg is a fantastic concert venue”, the band said in a statement.

This will be the seventh concert a-ha have played in Trondheim. Their last concert in the city was held at Lerkendal Stadium during the Farewell Tour in 2010.

There will be a ticket presale this Thursday, 31 August (10:00 am), for followers of Trondheim Concerts on Facebook. The general sale starts on Friday, 1 September (09:00 am) through Ticketmaster.

According to press articles in connection with the Trondheim announcement, the 2018 tour has now been extended to 60 concerts in total. a-ha manager Harald Wiik has previously said the tour will begin in the UK in June, followed by concerts through Europe, USA and South America.

Adressa.no: Nå kommer A-ha tilbake til byen
NRK.no: Nytt storband kommer til Sverresborg i 2018

‘The Voice’ premieres on TV2

Morten in the first episode of The Voice

The fourth season of The Voice premiered on TV2 in Norway last night, with Morten as one of the four mentors.

Back in 2012, Magne and his fellow mentors performed Coldplay’s “Viva La Vida” at the beginning of the first episode, but this year there was no performance by the mentors. Instead, the show went straight to the first blind audition.

Six talents performed tonight, and Morten pressed the red button on five of them. In the end, Martin ended up with two talents for his team, while Morten, Lene and Yosef got one each. 17-year-old Ingeborg is the first talent on Team Morten.

The full episode is only available for TV2 Sumo subscribers, but TV2 has also posted video clips of all the performances on YouTube:
Andrea   Isabelle   Olaves   Phillip   Alexandra   Ingeborg

Keep an eye on TV2’s YouTube channel and The Voice‘s Facebook page for more video clips in the coming days.

The Voice continues with new episodes each night this week until Friday. Starting next week, there will be new episodes only on Wednesday and Friday.

MTV Unplugged: Album cover and title

Summer Solstice album cover

The official site has now revealed the cover art of a-ha’s MTV Unplugged album and its title; Summer Solstice.

The album, which features cover photos by Just Loomis and artwork by Matthias Bäuerle, will be released on 6 October.

On that same day, MTV Germany will air the Summer Solstice concert on TV – but only a shortened 50-minute version.

No tracklist has been posted yet, but the regular album will probably only include a selection of the 21 songs performed at Giske.

Whether there will also be a 2CD-version with all the songs is unknown. But hopefully the Blu-ray/DVD will include the whole concert.

a-ha to perform in Ålesund and Bodø next year

Two new festival dates on a-ha’s 2018 summer tour have now been announced, adding to the already known date at Kongsberg Jazzfestival on 6 July:

17 August 2018: Jugendfest, Ålesund, Norway
18 August 2018: Parkenfestivalen, Bodø, Norway

Jugendfest is held at Color Line Stadium, the same football stadium where a-ha played in August 2006, as part of the Analogue tour. Parkenfestivalen is held at the Rensås park, and this will be a-ha’s first ever concert in Bodø (Morten and Paul have both done solo concerts in Bodø).

Tickets for Jugendfest go on sale on Friday, 25 August at tikkio.com, while tickets for Parkenfestivalen won’t be available until 1 November.

Press articles:
A-ha bekreftet til Jugend 2018
Nå kommer tidenes norske band til Parken

New Savoy reissues: solid remastering, but shorter than the original albums

Mountains of Time inner cover with new liner notes by Kieron Tyler, record sleeve with lyrics, and CD.

The new and remastered version of Savoy’s Mountains of Time (1999) was released by Apollon Records last month, and those who pre-ordered the vinyl and CD versions from the Savoy Bandcamp page are finally starting to receive their items.

I have only had a chance to listen to the new CD version so far, but from the first moments of the opening track “Man in the Park”, the increased clarity and detail resulting from Joe Lambert’s new remastering work is striking. There’s an added punch to the drums and the layered guitars sound razor sharp. To my ears, it sounds really good throughout the album.

But those familiar with the original album will also notice that many of the songs are noticeably shorter on this reissue. That was also the case with the Lackluster Me reissue last year, which was 2 minutes 13 seconds shorter than the original 1997 release – but it’s even more obvious on Mountains of Time, which has been shortened by 3 minutes 12 seconds in total, compared to the 1999 release.

While most of the edited songs simply fade out earlier, some of them, like “Any Other Way” and “Grind You Down” have parts missing in the middle of the songs.

According to Apollon Records, editing some of the songs for the new vinyl editions is Paul’s own choice, as it was necessary in order to fit the albums on one vinyl record in best possible sound quality. The original albums were never recorded with the vinyl format in mind.

But that’s not really the issue; regardless of the need to shorten the albums for vinyl, the original full-length versions could easily have been used on the new CDs and digital versions. That has not been done. Additionally, Apollon Records has also chosen not to mention the new song edits anywhere.

They are still fantastic albums, in beautifully presented gatefold covers with new and informative liner notes. But it’s confusing when certain parts of the songs you’re so used to hearing suddenly are missing.

According to some fans, there is also an error on the actual Mountains of Time vinyl record, in the form of a “clicking” noise at the end of some songs that sounds like someone changing tracks. This is not present on the CD version.

For more detailed info about which songs have been edited, check out these comparisons between the original CDs and the reissue CDs:
Lackluster Me (1997 vs 2016)
Mountains of Time (1999 vs 2017)

‘The Voice’ to premiere on 21 August

The mentors: Yosef Wolde-Mariam, Lene Marlin, Morten Harket and Martin Danielle

The fourth season of the Norwegian version of The Voice, with Morten as one of the mentors, is now set to premiere on TV2 on 21 August.

During the first week, there will be a new episode every night, Monday through Friday, at 20:00.

There will also be a marathon-repeat of the first five episodes on Saturday 26 August, from 13:00 to 18:30.

A trailer for the show can be viewed at TV2.no.

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