Posts Tagged ‘new york’

a-ha returning to New York

Concert ad

a-ha will be playing at Radio City Music Hall for “one night only” on 12 April 2022, the official site announced today. This will be their first concert in New York since 2010 and the first in this particular venue since they played two nights there in October 1986.

Radio City Music Hall has a capacity of around 6,000 people. The date comes at the end of a month-long tour of South- and North-America in March and April next year, and brings the total number of concerts on the 2022 Hunting High and Low tour up to 44.

There will be a fan presale tomorrow, while the regular ticket sale opens on 3 December.

a-ha – The Movie to premiere in June

Directed by Thomas Robsahm and Aslaug Holm.

After several postponements and much back and forth, the highly anticipated documentary film a-ha – The Movie is now finally set to premiere, at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York in June 2021.

The festival is held from 9 – 20 June, and the movie will be shown as part of the “Spotlight Documentary” section. Producer and co-director Thomas Robsahm says it will be extra special to have the world premiere in New York, only a few blocks from where Paul Waaktaar-Savoy lived for many years.

The movie will also premiere in Norway during the same month, on 18 June. It will also be distributed by First Hand Films in a number of other countries, including Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Belgium, Finland, Israel, Sweden and South Korea.

The running time may end up varying in different markets, as in addition to the 1 hour 39 minute version planned for Norwegian cinemas, there is also mention of a 90-minute version and a 52-minute version.

Other links:
World premiere for a-ha – The Movie at Tribeca
Anthony Bourdain, A-ha docs among 2021 Tribeca Festival feature line-up

Update 5/5:
It looks like the world premiere will happen at Brookfield Place in New York on June 12th. Tickets go on sale May 10th, while tickets for the virtual screening (starting June 13th – US only) are available now at tribecafilm.com.

Linnea Dale on working with Paul

Album cover

Album cover

“Better Without You”, the third single from Linnea Dale’s upcoming album, premiered on Norwegian radio a few days ago. This is one of the songs that she’s done together with Paul in New York.

In an interview on NRK P1’s Nitimen, Linnea talked about the experience of working with Paul:

“It was fabulous. I have enormous respect for him as a songwriter, so it was great to go over there. We started out with a pre-production session here in Oslo where we tested out some ideas, and then I flew over to New York and spent a week there a while later.”

It was Warner Music that brought Paul into the process. He has been busy moving to a new house recently:

“[The Waaktaar-Savoys] had just moved from Soho to a brownstone house in Brooklyn, so we were working in an improvised studio on the top floor. We had to stop recording every time a plane flew over head, as it wasn’t soundproof.”

Her upcoming album Good Goodbyes (April 25th) will also include two other songs written with Paul: “Sweet Life” and “With Eyes Closed”. Another song Paul mentioned in the a-ha.com Q&A, “Better Days”, must have been left out – unless the song title has changed.

“Better Without You” can be heard here (at 1:44:50).

New interview with Paul

Paul in his home studio 
(Picture by Lauren, from sonicscoop.com)

Music journalist David Weiss recently visited Paul in his home studio in SoHo, New York, to talk about his studio equipment and working methods. The interview has now been published on music website sonicscoop.com.

In the last few months, various equipment from Paul’s studio has appeared for sale on eBay. And in the interview he says that he’s indeed becoming more selective about his tools:

“10 years ago I had a Trident desk, every synth in the book, and gear up to the ceilings. Now it’s more computer-based, and I’m just trying to keep the stuff that we really love, and get breathing space.

It works a lot better. I like to experiment, but if you have too many things, you don’t get around to it. Synths with 15,000 presets becomes like Lord of the Rings – it’s endless.”

But he still has a lot of gear to help him create that special sound he’s looking for.

“Most of the stuff I write needs a certain atmosphere to work at all, so I’m very sensitive to achieving that for an instrument or vocal – I have to have that thing that gives me shivers. If I don’t feel it, we’ll work on something else. Obviously the performance is the most important thing, but you can help it along”, Paul says.

Read the whole article, which includes a lot of pictures from the studio, at sonicscoop.com.

Magne visits New York and Los Angeles

New York, October 20th 
(Picture from naccusa.org)

Magne has been spending some time in the US recently. On October 20th he attended a gala luncheon at The Pierre Hotel in New York, held by The Norwegian-American Chamber of Commerce, where Moods of Norway were presented with The Norwegian-American Trade Award. King Harald and Queen Sonja of Norway were also present.

Moods of Norway, which has its own store in Los Angeles, has experienced success in the US and is planning another store in New York. Magne is currently on the board of directors of the clothing brand.

Some pictures of Magne with Simen Staalnacke and Stefan Dahlquist from Moods at the New York event can be seen at the NACC website here and here.

 
And on October 28th, Moods of Norway posted a picture on their Facebook page of Magne visiting the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Los Angeles together with Simen and Stefan.

VG article and slideshow

Picture from VG

Picture from VG

There is a 9-page article about a-ha in today’s paper edition of VG. The article was done in New York earlier this month and features several pictures taken by Janne Møller-Hansen.

A great slideshow with more of Møller-Hansen’s pictures from New York, set to the tones of “Real Meaning”, is also available online at VG Nett.

Here are some quotes from the article:

Magne: We could easily have continued with a-ha, it’s difficult to say stop when things are going as well as they do. But the question is: Would we continue to inspire each other? I think the answer is no.

Morten: Magne is put together differently than me. Magne doesn’t live in a contemplative room. He just grabs the afterthought as he goes along, while he is saddling two horses that he rides at the same time. His work is his meditation. I’m completely different, I spend a lot of time reflecting on things.

Paul: I’m spoilt in the way that I hear Morten’s voice when I’m writing songs. I would be interested in writing more songs for him, even if we’re not together as a-ha anymore.

Third concert in New York

A third concert in New York has now been announced. a-ha.com has the details about the show, which takes place on 8 May at the Nokia Theatre.

This also means that the total number of concerts on the farewell tour has now reached 40.

a-ha concerts in New York and Los Angeles

a-ha.com has announced three a-ha concerts in New York and Los Angeles in May:

  6 May: Nokia Theatre, New York, USA
  7 May: Nokia Theatre, New York, USA
15 May: Club Nokia, Los Angeles, USA

An a-ha.com ticket presale starts on 2 February.

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