Posts Tagged ‘kjetil bjerkestrand’

Morten performs in Russia

Rehearsing at Music House in Copenhagen this week (Picture from Music House on Facebook)

Rehearsing at Music House in Copenhagen this week
(Picture from Facebook)

[Updated]: Morten travelled to Russia this weekend, to perform at two separate events in Yekaterinburg with his solo band.

The first concert was apparently held at the Pine Creek golf resort on Friday, 22 July, and seems to have been in connection with the Day of Metallurgist, which is a Russian holiday celebrating workers in the metallurgical industry. The logo on stage says Russian Copper Company, so that may be the company that’s hired him.

Setlist 22 July (with links to video clips):
1. Foot Of The Mountain
2. Stay On These Roads
3. Spanish Steps
4. Crying In The Rain
5. Brother
6. A Kind Of Christmas Card
7. Did I Leave You Behind
– – – – – – – – – – –
8. Let It Be Me

The second concert was held at the Hyatt Regency in Yekaterinburg on Sunday, 24 July, as part of the award ceremony of Eurasia Extreme Open 2016, a week-long handgun shooting tournament. The setlist included two additional songs; “Safe With Me” and “Wild Seed”.

Setlist 24 July (with links to video clips):
1. Foot Of The Mountain
2. Stay On These Roads
3. Spanish Steps
4. Safe With Me
5. Wild Seed
6. Crying In The Rain
7. Did I Leave You Behind
8. Brother
9. A Kind Of Christmas Card
– – – – – – – – – – –
10. Let It Be Me

These were Morten’s first solo performances since November 2014. It was also the first time he has played a-ha songs with his Brother backing band. On the 2014 tour he only played his own solo songs.

Pictures from Yekaterinburg:
The band backstage   Morten with his son Jonathan   Morten with a fan at the airport

Earlier this week, Morten was rehearsing with the band at the Music House venue in Copenhagen, Denmark.

The musicians were mostly the same as on the Brother tour in 2014; Vicky Singh on guitar, Lars Danielsson on bass, Per Lindvall on drums, but with Kjetil Bjerkestrand on keyboard instead of Christer Karlsson.

Music House has posted a few pictures from the Copenhagen rehearsals on their Facebook page.

Morten performs at Marita Foundation’s 30th Anniversary

Morten, sporting a Movember moustache, on stage in Oslo last night (Screenshot from YouTube video)

Morten, sporting a Movember moustache, on stage in Oslo last night
(Screenshot from YouTube video)

Morten performed three songs together with Kjetil Bjerkestrand last night, at the 30th anniversary celebration of the Marita Foundation held at the Salem Church in Oslo.

The Marita Foundation, started in 1984, is a Christian foundation that aims to prevent drug use among young people and to help recovering addicts build a new life for themselves. Morten has been supporting the foundation since the mid-90s, and contributed a special version of “A Kind Of Christmas Card” for the documentary film Marita – En advarsel fra noen som overlevde in 1996.

Morten performing "A Change Is Gonna Come" (Screenshot from YouTube video)

Morten performing “A Change Is Gonna Come” (Screenshot from YouTube video)

Morten spoke to the audience about how much he admires the work done by the foundation and its leader, Leiv Holstad, who was given The King’s Medal of Merit at the event last night:

“You’ve done an impressive amount of work, Leiv, for which you’ve been honoured by the King tonight – about time you were, in my opinion. You’d be the first to say that it’s not just you, there are so many people working together with you, of course. The rest of us are priveleged to be able to lend our support, and we are proud of the work you are doing.”

Morten also talked about how anyone can end up in addiction, but that it’s possible to break away from it with the help of people like Leiv Holstad and the Marita Foundation:

“The force of habit is a powerful thing. And breaking free from a negative downward spiral is about understanding the force of habit, and realizing that you always have the choice to break free and climb upwards instead. It’s a very fragile balance. For me as well. I’m standing here on stage and have been doing this for 30 years, but it’s not easy. People tend to look at me as this rock-solid guy who works hard and just keeps going – and that’s true on some level – but I could easily have ended up in a bad place at any time.”

Some video clips from last night’s event have been posted on YouTube by Lena:

A Kind Of Christmas Card    Morten speaks
There Is A Place    A Change Is Gonna Come

Vårt Land article: Hedret Holstad
Pictures by Angelica Kjos on Instagram: Picture 1  Picture 2
Instagram picture by Jofrid Landa
Instagram picture by Audun Rensel

a-ha perform at National Memorial Ceremony

a-ha performed “Stay On These Roads” together with The Norwegian Radio Orchestra as part of the National Memorial Ceremony at Oslo Spektrum today, to remember the victims of the July 22nd attacks.

With them on stage they also had Karl Oluf Wennerberg on drums and Erik Ljunggren on keyboard. The song was arranged for orchestra by Kjetil Bjerkestrand.

If you missed the live broadcast, a-ha’s performance can be seen here. The whole 2-hour ceremony is available at nrk.no.

Watch Morten and Pia

Morten and Pia Tjelta on stage, May 7th

Morten and Pia Tjelta on stage, May 7th

Morten and actress Pia Tjelta, accompanied by Kjetil Bjerkestrand on piano, performed the Everly Brothers song “Let It Be Me” at the opening of Eger shopping center in Oslo tonight.

Morten told Dagbladet that they had recently performed the song together at a private party, and when Pia later sent him a text message and asked if he wanted to perform it again at tonight’s opening he was impressed by her initiative.

Morten and Pia

Morten and Pia

Pia is easy to work with and eager to accomplish things. She is curious in a good way“, Morten said of his duet partner.

Morten has performed “Let It Be Me” alone and together with others many times before.

When asked today why this particular tune was chosen, Morten said:
The guitar I’m playing was a gift from Phil Everly. I sometimes use that as an explanation [for playing “Let It Be Me”]. And this is an Everly Brothers classic. It’s actually an even older French song. But they made it famous. And it’s always been a good song.

Videos of the performance and video interviews with Morten and Pia can be seen at VG.no and Dagbladet.no.

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