Paul in Kazan, 8 March
(Picture by Oksana Orlova)

a-ha played the second concert of their spring tour at Basket-Hall in Kazan on Tuesday, 8 March. The setlist was identical to Yekaterinburg two days earlier, although “Here I Stand And Face The Rain” was played during soundcheck – a song they have only played a few times since the 1991 tour.

Here are some YouTube-videos from Kazan:
Giving Up The Ghost
Sycamore Leaves
Living At The End Of The World
Crying In The Rain
Velvet    Lifelines
Mythomania
Under The Makeup   The Living Daylights   The Sun Always Shines On TV

Magne in Kazan, 8 March
(Picture by Oksana Orlova)

Yesterday’s concert at the Ice Palace arena in St. Petersburg, however, included several changes. Most notably ditching two songs from Cast In Steel; “Giving Up The Ghost” and “Mythomania”, in favor of two oldies; “We’re Looking For The Whales” and “You Are The One”.

This means that although it’s called the Cast In Steel Tour, a mere two out of twenty songs last night were actually from the new album – the lowest number of new songs they’ve ever played on a tour supporting a recent album.

The order of the songs had also been shuffled around quite a bit last night, compared to the first two shows.

They usually experiment with different setlists at the beginning of a tour, before it settles, so we’ll see how it evolves from here. Next tour stop is Moscow on Saturday. Keep an eye on a-ha live on Twitter, as I’ll try to live-tweet during each concert.

Morten in St. Petersburg, 10 March
(Picture by Oksana Orlova)

One special thing about St. Petersburg was the local support band Red’s Cool, an “uncompromising hard-rock band”, which certainly stands out among the many support acts a-ha have had in recent years. Here’s a short video clip of them on stage.

Mew/Apparatjik vocalist Jonas Bjerre attended the concert last night, as Magne’s guest.

And there’s a great photo gallery from the show on Facebook, taken by Andrey Lukovnikov.

St. Petersburg setlist:
1. I’ve Been Losing You
2. Cry Wolf
3. Move To Memphis
4. Stay On These Roads
5. Living At The End Of The World
6. The Swing Of Things
7. Crying In The Rain (Morten & Tini)
8. Mother Nature Goes To Heaven
9. We’re Looking For The Whales
10. Velvet (Paul & Tini)
11. Lifelines (Magne & Tini)
12. Foot Of The Mountain
13. You Are The One
14. Sycamore Leaves
15. Hunting High And Low
16. Scoundrel Days
——————-
17. The Sun Always Shines On TV
18. Under The Makeup
19. The Living Daylights
20. Take On Me

On March 9th a-ha did a press conference in St. Petersburg. There’s a photo gallery from the event at spbdnevnik.ru.

They have also done a few more TV-interviews:
Channel 5 interview   ETB interview