Buenos Aires, March 4th

a-ha opened their “Ending on a High Note” Farewell Tour in front of 10.000 people in a sold-out Luna Park concert hall in Buenos Aires last night. This was also the first a-ha concert in Argentina since 1991.

The intro music that opened the concert was Tchaikovsky’s “Serenade in C major”, which was used for the first time in nine years. In 2000/2001 this classical piece was the intro on most of the concerts on the MEMS tour.

The setlist was quite long – 22 songs – but the only real surprise was “We’re Looking For The Whales”, which was played live for the first time since the 80s. One could perhaps have expected something different than the usual live songs and hits since the band have promised special concerts for the fans on this farewell tour. But hopefully they will change it up a little after a while.

The order of the songs was original, though. Starting with two songs from Foot Of The Mountain, the set continued chronologically backwards by album, except for an acoustic set in the middle with “Early Morning” and “And You Tell Me”.

Here is the full setlist (with links to YouTube-clips):

Morten on stage in Buenos Aires

1. The Bandstand
2. Foot Of The Mountain
3. Analogue
4. Forever Not Yours
5. Summer Moved On
6. Move To Memphis
7. Crying In The Rain
8. Stay On These Roads
9. The Blood That Moves The Body
10. The Living Daylights
11. Early Morning
12. And You Tell Me
13. Scoundrel Days
14. Cry Wolf
15. We’re Looking For The Whales
16. Manhattan Skyline
17. I’ve Been Losing You
———–
18. Living A Boys Adventure Tale
19. Hunting High And Low
20. Train Of Thought
21. The Sun Always Shines On TV
22. Take On Me

 
Magne and Morten talked to Aftenposten after the concert. Here’s a translation for you:

Magne:
“An incredible audience. We were carried forward on a wave of South American madness. This was a great gig, and now the party has begun. The ball is rolling, and we’ll just have to hold on to it.”

Paul on stage in Buenos Aires
(See more pictures by gigriders.com on Flickr)

Morten:
“Yeah, it turned out to be a really fun gig. We played here 19 years ago and experienced exactly the same back then. This was as good a start of the tour as we could have hoped for, and that makes me pleased and relieved. Because it’s not guaranteed to work like that, an opening concert is always connected with uncertainty.”

Magne:
“We won’t get another chance to present this show for people in Argentina, obviously. This was the last chance, so we went full steam ahead and it worked.”

Morten:
“It also has to do with us having so much experience and professional instincts. Even though we had a lot of technical difficulties in the preparations leading up to the concert, we just won’t tolerate that things aren’t working on the night itself. Quite simply. The fact that this is live, where anything can happen, helps to keep us focused.”

Local reviews:
MSN Argentina     Clarin.com     Pagina 12
Rolling Stone Argentina     10musica.com

Since tomorrow’s concert in Santiago has been cancelled, the next concert will be in Bauru, Brazil on Tuesday.