Posts Tagged ‘a-ha’

“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.

Tour update

“(Seemingly) Nonstop July” made a rare appearance at the concert in Dresden on Sunday, as it was performed live for the first time since 1994:

 

Dresden, 25 July.

Dresden, 25 July.

Pictures and info from the Dresden concert, 25 July:
YouTube videos
SZ-online.de
DNN online
Photo gallery

Halle concert, 24 July:
YouTube videos
Borkener Zeitung
nw-news.de
Westfalen Blatt
mt-online.de
neue-oz.de
ImageShack album by Gosia

Emmendingen concert, 23 July:
YouTube videos
Badische Zeitung
Baden Online
Photobucket album by Claudia
Photobucket album by basi9

Stimme.de – video interview with Morten and Paul.

Want a copy of 25?

25

25

To celebrate 400 followers on Twitter (and nearly 400.000 visitors on the website), I’m giving away a copy of the new 2CD a-ha collection 25, which was released in Norway this week.

For a chance to win, send me an e-mail with the subject line “a-ha 25 collection”. The 4th person who e-mails me gets it.

Update: We have a winner. Congratulations to Malin!

Concerts in Ukraine and Belarus

Two additional concerts have now been announced – not on a-ha.com, but in the farewell tour book (which is available from the official store).

The dates are:
4 November: Palace of Sports, Kiev, Ukraine
6 November: Palace of Sports, Minsk, Belarus

This means that the total number of concerts on the farewell tour ends up at 70.

Events in London

a-ha will do a signing session and an exclusive live performance in London on 6 October, to promote the UK release of 25.

Some info from a press release posted here:

“25 – The Very Best Of comes at the start of a bumper week for a-ha, as HMV have announced today that they will exclusively celebrate the album’s release with a signing at HMV’s Oxford Street flagship store at 6:00pm on Wednesday 6 October (due to limited time, 350 wristbands will be issued in-store only from 9:00am on 6 October on a first come first served basis).

This will be followed the very same day at 7:30pm by a very special live performance by
a-ha at the HMV venue Heaven. Tickets for this unique gig are exclusive to HMV customers who pre-order the album now. For a chance to obtain tickets go to HMV.com. Marking
a-ha’s 25-year anniversary, the first 25 people in the queue for a signing session wristband will also win a pair of tickets to the evening gig at Heaven.

New interviews

Magne on the cover of Magasinet, 24 July.

Magne on the cover of Magasinet, 24 July.

This week the guys have been busy doing promo in Germany – at least Paul and Morten.

Sound Base Online Magazine has talked to Paul about a variety of topics. Of particular interest is the fact that he hints at an a-ha video collection being released on blu-ray. An English translation of the interview has been posted on the WOTM forum by Sandra.

Another interview, with Paul and Morten, appeared in Badische Zeitung today.

There was also a short radio interview on WDR2. A link to download the audio has been posted by Frank on the German forum here.

And in Norway there’s an interview with Magne in Dagbladet’s weekend magazine on Saturday. There’s a TV-ad for it at the moment, with a voiceover saying: “An open Magne Furuholmen talks about life after a-ha and his serious illness“.

Tour update

Salem, Germany, 18 July.

Salem, Germany, 18 July.

The tour continued this past weekend with concerts in Austria, Switzerland and Germany.

On Friday they played for 3.500 people by Clam Castle near Linz. Some reviews and pictures are available here, here and here.

 
Some great pictures from Saturday’s concert at the Live at Sunset Festival in Zurich can be seen on Flickr (taken by Monica).

And be sure to watch the excellent HD clips from Zurich that Judith has posted on YouTube:
Move To Memphis
We’re Looking For The Whales
Stay On These Roads
The Living Daylights
Hunting High And Low
The Sun Always Shines On TV

A short clip from the soundcheck, filmed by Carole.

 
Pictures from Sunday’s concert in Salem have been posted here and here

Possibly the funniest moment of the tour occurred in Salem, when Morten experienced problems with the megaphone that he uses on “Manhattan Skyline”. The hilarious video can be seen here.

Apparently the setlists at these concerts were the same as in Budapest.

Budapest concert

Budapest, July 14th

Budapest, July 14th

a-ha played their very first (and last…) concert in Hungary on Wednesday night. Around 7000 people were present at the Papp Laszlo Sportarena in Budapest as a-ha entered the stage.

The set opened with the first live performance of “Butterfly, Butterfly”, as can be seen in this YouTube video. Unfortunately, the rest of the setlist is getting very stale, and there was only one song from the 90s this time. Despite Paul recently saying that the European setlist would be different from the concerts in North America, we have yet to see any significant changes. Let’s hope they have some surprises in store for the upcoming shows.

Budapest, July 14th

Budapest, July 14th

Setlist:
1. Butterfly, Butterfly
2. Foot Of The Mountain
3. The Bandstand
4. Analogue
5. Forever Not Yours
6. Minor Earth Major Sky
7. Summer Moved On
8. Move To Memphis
9. The Blood That Moves The Body
10. Stay On These Roads
11. The Living Daylights
12. Scoundrel Days
13. The Swing of Things
14. We’re Looking For The Whales
15. And You Tell Me
16. Manhattan Skyline
17. I’ve Been Losing You
18. Cry Wolf
19. Hunting High And Low
20. The Sun Always Shines On TV
21. Take On Me

 
Leading up the concert, there were several interviews in the Hungarian media.

Paul was interviewed by Radio Juventus. Audio and picture here.

RTL Klub had an interview with Magne. Video here.

And Morten appeared on Hungary’s TV2. Video here.

Quart.hu has a review of the concert here. Another good review appeared at Nepszabadsag Online. Overall the Hungarian press was very positive toward the concert, Tamas reports.

 
Today the band travelled by train to Linz, Austria. The trip has been thoroughly documented by Augie on Twitter.

(Thanks to Qouda, Tamas and Lorien)

Casiokids winner of final talent grant

Magne says hello from Budapest.

Magne says hello from Budapest.

The fourth and final winner of the a-ha talent grant was revealed at the VG chart show in Bergen tonight.

Local rapper Lars Vaular and indiepop-band Casiokids were the two finalists tonight, and the winner of one million kroner turned out to be Casiokids. The band released its second album earlier this year.

No a-ha members were able to be in Bergen tonight, but Magne appeared in a video clip from Budapest, where a-ha are playing indoors at the city’s sport arena tonight.

“Butterfly” update

“Butterfly, Butterfly” has entered the Norwegian singles chart Topp 20 at number 13 in its first week. On the airplay chart Hit 40 the song is currently at number 6 in its third week.

The song will be released as a physical single in both Germany (July 30th) and the UK (Sep. 20th), a-ha.com reports. The second track on the CD single is an alternate version produced by Steve Osborne, which is longer than the Martin Terefe version.

The UK radio premiere of “Butterfly, Butterfly” can be heard tomorrow morning on Ken Bruce’s show on BBC Radio 2.

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