a-ha will do a signing session at the Tanum bookstore on Karl Johan street in Oslo on Wednesday 1 December at 4PM, where they will sign the new edition of “The Swing Of Things”.
This was announced on the bookstore chain’s website.
Jan Omdahl’s updated edition of TSOT was published back in August, and is available in Norwegian, English and German versions.
For those who are able to go – please note that the band will only sign copies of the book, and no other items. The books also have to be bought at the Tanum store.
Later the same day, at 7PM, the book publisher Press is hosting a discussion about a-ha at the House of Literature in Oslo. “The Swing Of Things” author Jan Omdahl and music journalist Audun Vinger will take part.
a-ha made their last ever UK TV appearance on Monday, when they appeared on The Alan Titchmarsh Show on ITV1. Following a short interview, they did a live performance of “The Sun Always Shines On TV”. Thanks to Chris for uploading the clip above to YouTube.
Brighton, 15 November (Photo by Elliott Wright – more on the gallery page)
The UK part of the tour started in Brighton last Monday, November 15th. The setlist was the same as before, but in later concerts “(Seemingly) Nonstop July” has been replaced by “The Swing Of Things” and the order of the songs has been changed around somewhat.
For some good video clips from Brighton, check out this playlist on YouTube by Chris.
MTV in the UK aired a special called “a-ha’s Greatest 80’s Videos” on October 31st, where the band introduced 40 music videos from the 1980s. Most of the video introductions have been compiled by Chris into a 7-minute clip on YouTube, which can be seen here.
The last four concerts in Oslo next week are fast approaching. There is no support band in Oslo, and the stage time will be 8:30pm – so don’t be late!
a-ha.com also announced last week that the final concert on December 4th will be filmed for a DVD release. Hopefully it will be available on Blu-ray as well.
Some fans are planning a “fan action” moment during the last concert, where the audience should hold up “thank you”-signs. More info is available on Facebook.
For those of you going to Oslo, the a-ha exhibition at the National Library is open from 9am to 7pm Monday to Friday, and from 9am to 6pm on Saturday, December 4th.
There is also an exhibition at Galleri MAP, showing a-ha photos taken by Janne Møller-Hansen between 1985 and 1987, which is open from 1pm to 8pm on November 30th and December 2nd, 3rd and 4th. On December 1st, it’s open from 1pm to 5pm.
Siemens Arena, Vilnius, Lithuania, 2 November (Picture by Agne)
a-ha played at the Palace of Sports in Minsk, Belarus yesterday. Since the last news update the band has also performed in Braunschweig, Mannheim, Hamburg, Berlin, Riga, Vilnius and Kiev.
They are playing it safe, with the setlist continuing to be the same at all the gigs. But the press reviews have been good all along.
Vilnius, 2 November (Picture by Agne)
Sadly, Morten’s mother Henny passed away on Tuesday, November 2nd. She was 80 years old. The funeral will be held on November 12th, the day after the concert in St. Petersburg.
The Shropshire Star had an interview with Magne on Thursday, November 4th. Read it here.
A radio interview that the guys did on Absolute Radio in the UK last month is now also available for viewing on the station’s website.
Morten made a surprise appearance in a comedy sketch on BBC1’s The Armstrong and Miller Show last Saturday, October 30th.
The musical number, which sees Morten appear as a seller at a farmer’s market, is available on YouTube here (after 2:30).
And I’ve been contacted by a fan named José, who wants to share the YouTube clips he filmed at the Royal Albert Hall concert on October 8th – from behind the band.
He has posted all the songs on his YouTube channel here.
The band played for 5000 people at the Stadthalle in Rostock yesterday, after having said farewell to audiences in Brussels, Paris, Madrid, Barcelona, Basel, Munich, Stuttgart, Nuremberg and Lepzig during the last couple of weeks.
The setlist seems to have remained the same at every gig so far.
For extensive fan coverage of each concert, with links to picture galleries, video clips and more – visit the tour forum on WOTM.
Yet another date has been added for the final week in Oslo. This very last (?) addition to the tour schedule takes place on 30 November and tickets go on sale on Tuesday, 26 October.
Jimmy Gnecco has announced in a blog entry on his official website that he’ll be supporting a-ha at all the 10 UK dates in November as well.
BBC Radio 2 broadcast parts of the Royal Albert Hall concert on Thursday night; the whole HHAL album + 3 songs from SD. The broadcast is available for a few more days on the BBC website. Or you can find details on how to download a high-quality recording made by Chris on WOTM.
The German website BoostTV.de has a 12-minute video interview with Morten that was recorded back in July. It can be seen here.
And it turns out the radio interview that Jian Ghomeshi did with the band for Studio Q on CBC in Canada on 14 May was also filmed. The whole 43-minute interview can be watched in HD on Q TV’s YouTube channel.
The cover of Jimmy Gnecco’s first solo album The Heart, released earlier this year.
The support act in Amsterdam was Paul’s good friend and collaborator from New York, Jimmy Gnecco, who will open for a-ha at another five concerts this week.
Gnecco, who did the lead vocals on “The Breakers” and backing vocals on “Shooting Spree” for Savoy’s self-titled album in 2004, revealed in a recent interview with uberrock.co.uk that Paul actually asked him to join the band at one point – an idea that was shot down by Savoy’s record company:
So how did you get to know Paul Savoy?
I met him in ’96. My friend was playing with Savoy and I met him then. And then I got my deal. It was weird because I’m a huge fan of a-ha and Savoy’s first record [‘Mary Is Coming’]. I mean I like a lot of his records but the first one I’m such a huge fan of. And then I started making records and he genuinely became a fan and he called me – he loved ‘Precious’ – he asked me if I wanted to sing on anything I said: “in a second!” then I went down and I sang on a bunch of songs and then he asked me to join the band and I said: “sure” – I’d be like an honorary member you know.
Then they went back and talked to their record company and the record company was like: “we like your voices that’s why we signed you” – they didn’t really want me to do it. They didn’t know me. I’m sure they liked it but…I’m hoping to do something with Paul in the future.
The final leg of the farewell tour started at the Heineken Music Hall in Amsterdam on Sunday night, featuring some changes compared to previous indoor concerts earlier this year.
The stage was basically a scaled-down version of the Norwegian stadium concerts, using parts of the butterfly-screen as backdrop.
The setlist also seems to have been identical to the stadium concerts – 21 songs starting with “The Sun Always Shines On TV” and ending with “Take On Me”.
Some pictures from Amsterdam has been posted by Sandra here.
For videos from the show, check out Malin’s YouTube clips here. She has also written a report on the WOTM Forum.
Meanwhile, in the UK, the 25 collection has entered the album chart at number 10, selling 10,835 units in its first week. It’s the fifth a-ha album to reach the UK top ten. Well done!
a-ha played at the Royal Albert Hall in London for the 6th and final time yesterday.
Like in Oslo earlier in the week, they were joined by members of the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra and played both Hunting High and Low and Scoundrel Days in their entirety.
For some high quality videos from the concert, check out the ones that Chris is uploading to YouTube here.
HMV signing session, October 6th
On Wednesday, following a signing session for the 25 compilation at the HMV store in Oxford Street, the band did an intimate gig at the Heaven nighclub for 300 lucky competition winners.
The setlist (with links to YouTube videos by Chris):
Earlier in the day, they did a few TV-appearances on ITV. A short interview on Daybreak (YouTube), then an interview on Lorraine Kelly’s show (YouTube) and a live performance of “The Sun Always Shines On TV” (YouTube).
On Thursday Magne and Morten were interviewed on Loose Women (YouTube), and Paul joined them for a live performance of “Take On Me” at the end (YouTube).
a-ha surprised the audience at Oslo Konserthus last night, by not only playing the Hunting High and Low-album, but also the entire Scoundrel Days-album – 20 songs in all.
Another surprise was that Paul and Magne had decided to change sides on stage for the first time since 1994.
Dagbladet’s reviewer Sven Ove Bakke gives the concert 4 out of 6, and is not entirely satisfied with a-ha’s collaboration with Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra:
(…) Adding string arrangements to cool and quite minimalistic synthpop is a challenge.
The strings should preferably seek out the darkest and coldest corners, and bring out the underlying unease and dark melancholy that run through the early a-ha material.
But Kjetil Bjerkestrand’s bombastic, light romantic string arrangements did little else than rub the a-ha material with the hairs.
On its best, it gave the durable a-ha classics a sort of extra pomposity, predictably mood-enhancing, but not too annoying.
Luckily “Here I Stand And Face The Rain” and “Soft Rains Of April” – both strong endings on their respective albums – benefited from effectively sweeping and ending credits-like dramaturgy.
In the worst cases – where “And You Tell Me” stood out as a horrible low point – you got an overly sweet Disney-Christmas feeling.
Mostly, they were positioned somewhere in between – arrangements so dead that Princess Märtha Louise in the seventh row was probably the only one who got something of value out of them. (…)
On Friday, the audience in London will get a chance to hear the same concert at the Royal Albert Hall.
Passing along a message from photographer Just Loomis:
Thank you all a-ha fans who purchased prints from my website: justloomisahaart.com. This site is no longer live.
The time has passed to do this on my own and I now announce that I am happily working with the official a-ha site now.
If you are interested in getting a print please go to the official site.
thanks again to all that supported my site,
Just Loomis
a-ha are now in the UK to promote 25, which is being released there next Monday.
Today they did a live session on the Ken Bruce Show on BBC Radio 2 – their third live session at the BBC Maida Vale studios since 2006. In addition to playing five of their own songs, the band performed a cover version of Soft Cell’s 1982 hit “Say Hello, Wave Goodbye”.
Setlist:
1. The Sun Always Shines On TV
2. Butterfly, Butterfly
3. Analogue
4. Say Hello, Wave Goodbye (Soft Cell cover)
5. Take On Me
6. (Seemingly) Nonstop July (Bonus online track)
The whole show, featuring the live tracks and interviews with the band is available on BBC’s website for 7 days here.
On Sunday, a special programme about a-ha called “A Life in Music” was broadcast on Smooth Radio. The 25-minute radio special, featuring interviews with all three members, can now be heard again here.
In addition to the standard version of 25 there will also be a 3-disc Deluxe Edition released in the UK, which features a DVD with 17 music videos. Although not a complete video collection, the DVD includes “Dark Is The Night”, “Angel In The Snow”, “Shapes That Go Together”, “Butterfly, Butterfly” and “Take On Me” (1984 version) – all of which are being released on DVD for the first time. The DVD also includes the videos for “I’ve Been Losing You”, “Lifelines” and “Did Anyone Approach You”, which were previously only available on a 2003 Spanish promo DVD.
The 3-disc deluxe edition of 25 can now be ordered from Amazon.co.uk.
