Archive for August, 2010

73.000 tickets sold

a-ha playing at Ullevaal in 2002.

a-ha playing at Ullevaal in 2002.

A total of 73.000 tickets have now been sold for the four stadium concerts in Norway in the next few weeks.

Here are the latest numbers:
Ullevaal Stadium, Oslo: 25.000
Brann Stadium, Bergen: 23.500
Lerkendal Stadium, Trondheim: 12.500
Sør Arena, Kristiansand: 12.000

They’ll be using a screen that’s 18 meters tall and 63 meters wide. The concerts will be monumental, intimate and warm. The audience will get a club-feeling at a stadium concert. The production is quite simply insane“, promoter Arne Svare tells Fædrelandsvennen’s print edition.

Sales numbers for the festival concerts in Stavanger and Tromsø are not available at the moment.

Old date rediscovered

This original concert ticket comes from a woman who attended the show.

This original concert ticket comes from
a woman who attended the show.

Earlier this year I found a previously unknown date on the first US tour (Toledo, 29 September 1986).

Now another unknown date has been discovered:
20 August 1986: Civic Auditorium, Santa Cruz, USA

A concert at Arco Arena in Sacramento was originally scheduled for 20 August, but ended up being cancelled due to poor ticket sales. So a replacement show was held in Santa Cruz instead.

I have added the date to the 1986 – 87 tour page here.

(Thanks to Catherine)

Paul talks about final live song

"I would like to leave people with a different vibe at the end", Paul says.

“I would like to leave people with a different
vibe at the end”
, Paul says.

Paul has some encouraging words for those of us hoping that a-ha will end the December 4th concert with a more appropriate final song than “Take On Me”.

Here are a few quotes from a new interview with Focus.de:

– Why is this the right moment to bring a-ha to an end?
– It’s not the right moment at all, in my view! I’m the one who said that we should record another album instead. It would have been nice to end things with a larger, final statement.

– You didn’t manage to get your will?
– You have to take into account the band chemistry, which provides creative sparks, but which also can be tiringly destructive in the long run. 25 years is a long time. We want to end on a high note. In any case, it will be both fun and strange to meet again a year later, when schedules and business decisions no longer play a part.

– And if the other two want to start up a-ha again?
– Then perhaps I’m the one who doesn’t want to! That’s how it’s always been; one of us is against it. But I think that Morten will continue to perform songs that I have written.
(….)
– What is the last song that a-ha will perform live?
– At least not “Take On Me” – if it’s up to me. I have nothing against the song, but I would like to leave people with a different vibe at the end.

 

A selection of other recent interviews from Germany:

Video clips:
Euromaxx (DW-TV, 5 August)
Breakfast TV (Sat1, 4 August)
a-ha MySpace page – EPK interview (29 July)
Brisant (ARD, 28 July)
Leute Heute (ZDF, 28 July)

Audio clips:
Radio BR3 (5 Aug) + PDF of questionnaire filled out by Paul here

Other:
Interview mit den Pop-Giganten (VirtualNights.com)
– Eine lange Popkarriere geht zu Ende Part 1 Part 2 (VIP.de)
“Ich höre nie Musik” (Welt Online, 1 August)

 

Oh, and “Butterfly, Butterfly” has entered the German single chart at number 22 in its first week.

Festival concerts in Japan

Osaka, August 8th

Osaka, August 8th

a-ha did two concerts at the Summer Sonic Festivals in Tokyo and Osaka last weekend.

Because the band was not headlining, the setlist was considerably shorter than usual:

1. The Bandstand
2. Foot Of The Mountain
3. Move To Memphis
4. The Blood That Moves The Body
5. Stay On These Roads
6. Scoundrel Days
7. I’ve Been Losing You
8. Cry Wolf
9. Hunting High And Low
10. The Sun Always Shines On TV
11. The Living Daylights
12. Take On Me

Here are more pictures from Tokyo and Osaka. And there’s a high quality clip of TSASOTV on YouTube, taken from an HD TV broadcast (starts at 0:56 mins) – plus a small interview after the song.

In addition to the concerts, the band found time to do some shopping and promotion. And Magne and his family had a special meeting with the sumo wrestlers Konishiki and Musashimaru.

(Thanks to Megumi and Miko)

Just Loomis selling favorite a-ha photos

One of the photos available from the website; a-ha on a beach in Brazil, 1991.

One of the photos available from the website;
a-ha on a beach in Brazil, 1991.

American photographer Just Loomis is the man behind some of the most iconic a-ha photos of the 1980s and 1990s. The cover photos of “Hunting High And Low”, “Stay On These Roads”, “East Of The Sun, West Of The Moon”, “Headlines And Deadlines” and “Memorial Beach” were all taken by him.

Now, for a limited time only, he is offering for sale some of his favorite a-ha photographs on a new website – justloomisahaart.com. The 12×15 inch high quality prints cost $230 (including international shipping).
Update: The price has now been lowered to $150, with two different shipping options – Standard International Air Mail ($15) and Express International Tracking ($45).

In addition to photo samples, the website includes Loomis’ own memories of the various photo shoots, like him and Magne climbing into a locked pub on the HHAL cover shoot and Terry Slater nearly falling through an unstable floor in Brazil.

In Norway, an exhibition of some of his works will be shown at the Stenersen Museum in Oslo from 10 February to 3 April 2011. The exhibition will also include a selection of a-ha photos, according to his own website at justloomis.com.

“Sommeråpent” interview

Sommeråpent, August 2nd

Sommeråpent, August 2nd

Morten and Magne were guests on “Sommeråpent” on NRK1 last night.

Morten ended up sitting in host Pål Thoresen’s chair during the interview, because he was afraid of the draft up on the roof of Folketeateret, from which the show is broadcast live. Thoresen’s chair was the only place he wanted to sit.

 

Sommeråpent, August 2nd

Sommeråpent, August 2nd

Morten:There are a lot of concerts that I have to perform, and I have to make sure that I don’t catch a cold. I’m already quite tired of having to take that into consideration. Tonight we’re sitting outside, and if there is too much draft I’ll just have to say; folks, this is too much for me.

Magne about the Royal Albert Hall concert:This is probably the first concert ever where we’ll start with “Take On Me”. It will be quite a special concert for us, and we have done our best to separate it from the rest of the big tour. There are three main events that are coming up now; the Norwegian stadium tour, which is completely different and spectacular. The anniversary concert in Royal Albert Hall which will be very strict conceptually, by playing the first album we relased from the first to the last song. And then there is the big tour in the autumn, which will again be something different. We try to vary things that way.

 

Sommeråpent, August 2nd

Sommeråpent, August 2nd

Morten about the upcoming concerts in Japan:We had also hoped to visit more countries than Japan. Unfortunately we won’t have time for more, but at least we’ll visit Japan. It’s not long since our last visit and we’re looking forward to it. Just a couple more days now – or, you’re leaving tomorrow?

Magne:I leave tomorrow.

Host Pål Thoresen:We should add that Paul Waaktaar-Savoy is not here. Nobody knows where he is, though he was last observed in Italy.”

Morten:We got another Pål instead.

Pål Thoresen:I’m the stand-in, so it’s still Pål, Mags and Morten. That’s how it should be.

 

Magne about the Norwegian stadium tour:We’re hoping these will be our most spectacular concerts ever. The stage production will actually be of the same size as the [1991] concert in Rio de Janeiro in front of 200.000 people. So we have spared no expenses and we’ll do our best to make this a proper farewell and a big party.

 

The whole interview can be seen on NRK’s web-TV here.

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