Yesterday Roxette played together as "Roxette" for the first time in over eight years (The "Room Service" tour, 2001) at Night of the Proms in Antwerp, Belgium. Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet reports that Marie was certainly the star of this bizarre evening. Roxette gets 3/5 for the concert, and probably would have gotten more hadn't they been so rusty the first song. "There's no doubt she's enjoying being part of Roxette again" Håkan Steen writes. It's very clear to Håkan that both Per and Marie want this more than anything, and more is to come. "Per twangs his guitar like he never took a break [he didn't! ed.] and it's very touching seeing Marie's smile in 'It Must Have Been Love' when she realizes they still have an audience and it wants to sing along!" Håkan continues mentioning that she doesn't move on stage like she used to and her voice is nervous, but warms up by all the love flowing from the numerous fans there.

Håkan's play by play comments:

Wish I Could Fly 2/5
The symphony orchestra opens with Hugo Alfvéns "Midsommarvaka." Then Per and Marie enters through the floor accompanied by huge cheers. This is however not Roxette's strongest song and the performance is rather shaky.

The Look 4/5
Ingenious, cool and almost gospel-like when the symphony orchestra jabs it up in the end.

It Must Have Been Love 3/5
"Let's slow it down a little, with a song that reminds us of Hollywood" says Per and starts the old classic acoustically. Confetti and sing along.

Joyride 3/5
This rocker actually gets a nice botox injection by the orchestra. The nerves have relaxed here and Per enjoys his rock poses and Marie plays air guitar.

Listen to Your Heart 4/5
The night's obvious climax. The.Best.Swedish.Powerballad.Ever is of course even better with tons of strings in the background. Marie lets her voice crack in all the right places and I even feel some goosebumps sneaking up on me.

"Swedish supergroup Roxette makes comeback at Night Of The Proms"

"We have missed the stage and our fans"

They were supposed to come seven years ago, if it wasn't for the fact that Marie Fredriksson (51) was diagnosed with a brain tumor. She fought for her life, and kept dreaming of a Roxette comeback. Belgium gets that honor. Tonight she will stand on the stage of Antwerp's Sportpaleis, together with Per Gessle (50). "No-one can imagine how much we are looking forward to this."

One big question remains this year at Night Of The Proms: can Roxette, the Swedish pop duo consisting of Marie Fredriksson and Per Gessle, still manage to overwhelm an audience with their hits? And most importantly: is Marie's voice still as good as before 2002, when she was diagnosed with cancer? At the Diamond room of the Antwerp Radisson Blu hotel, Marie left a somewhat weak impression. She was a bit timid, said few words in a slow pace. However, we don't have to worry, according to her entourage. On stage she's still a bomb.

Doing a comeback at the Night Of The Proms. Isn't that bizarre, Per?

Is this a one-time pleasure or is it a real comeback?

Marie, you have been very ill. Does your voice still sound as before?

Are you nervous to be in front of huge crowds again?

Do you think Swedish fans will be disappointed because you picked Belgium for a comeback?

Do you know the other guest artists?

You are staying in our country for a couple of weeks. Any other plans besides performing and recording?

"The first Proms night will be very emotional" Gazet Van Antwerpen, October 23 2009.

Per Gessle: "It's unbelievable how often you keep hearing our old songs. That's a sign of above that people are still interested in Roxette. The songs pop up in lists everywhere. Cause they are good songs? It helps, but there are so many good songs. I think another reason is that we always have chosen to keep the production in Stockholm and keep control of everything ourselves. In the USA they were hungry to get us to Los Angeles or New York, but then our records would have sounded like all other records out there while our music definately emerges from the '60s tradition. That's something very different to what you can hear nowadays. There's a big difference between 'The Look' and Lady Gaga. But don't get me wrong, there's nothing bad about Lady Gaga."

Per: "We are not really thinking about a next step."
Marie: "But it would be really great to make a new album together."
Per: "We can't imagine spending time together for a long time without working on new songs. That's an advantage we have when doing the Proms: between the gigs we have time to work on new material, especially in Belgium. However, we don't have any deadlines. There's no urge to release a new album within a certain time frame."

Per: "We have never felt any pressure from the Proms organizers. Since Marie got ill, we received a friendly phone call from them every six months without getting bored. And when the idea of a comeback rose, we immediately came to think about the Proms. They are sweet, professional people. And this is their 25th anniversary. Of course this leads to a strange problem: a comeback tour outside of Sweden. People in our home country have been waiting for Roxette for a long time. I guess things will be alright nonetheless. The Proms tour takes us to three major Roxette markets: the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany. We'll see what happens after that. We're still young, we still have the future." (laughs)

Marie: "I'm doing this because I feel well again and want to work. It will be fantastic to be back on stage with my friends, it's been a long time. I've been looking forward to this for such a long time, and in my heart I alway knew this would happen."
Per: "I was less optimistic. I played Roxette songs during my own tour, but it felt different. Now that Marie is back again the picture is right. There are plenty of bands in the world that do not have any problem going further with a new lead singer, just to preserve their branding. Look at Queen and Paul Rodgers for instance. That's not what I want. When I played the Roxette songs in my shows, I tried not to replace Marie. To me Roxette is a holy thing: Marie and I both together, and nothing else."

Per: "The first Proms night will be very emotional."

Translations by Pascal.

Yes. Yes it certainly was!

The CD is amazing, crystal clear sound, heavy bass and with a live feeling that puts you right back into the audience again. If you were there in the first place, that is… Kudos to Christoffer Lundqvist! The packaging is identical to the Roxette re-releases; a high glossy "eco" pack that looks like a small vinyl LP. Speaking of which, the album comes as a double LP with three bonus tracks as well, not reviewed here though.
The tracks on the album come from the best concerts available, and from what I can understand, some concerts were better than others. "Gessle over Europe" isn't mixed together to sound like one homogeneous concert so there are some fade ins and outs. This only affects the crowd noises though.
I won't review the concert again, so if you want to read about that, check that review out here.

In short: This album is a must have. I would recommend it to non-fans even. However, I have to mention some of the better tracks (and this is hard): "Doesn't Make Sense" is out of this world on this album, and so is "It Must Have Been Love" and "Listen to Your Heart." I can go on and on, but I'll limit myself to these three. What I keep wondering is if they've cut the last part out of "Listen to Your Heart" as I want to remember it from the concert that Per sings "you tell her goodbye…" yet another time.

Now, Capitol is marketing this as a CD with a bonus-DVD, while I think the audience may see it the other way around.

Overall the DVD is one of Per's nicer releases, and I'm glad they left off the two promo interviews that otherwise would've stolen another 30 min of precious disc space. There are some technical aspects I will mention later.
Anyway, the picture quality is most of the time very nice, not to say even perfect at times. While at times it's very pixelated with both macro blocking and digital banding. That's what you get when you compress the material too much. The concert is recorded in hi def, and I would've loved a blu-ray of this! This is reviewed on a 46" LCD monitor by the way, and I know for a fact that it will look a lot better on a smaller TV.
The average bitrate per second is 6.41 MB/sec which is fair, but not excellent. The bitrate of the Unplugged DVD was 6.16, while the "HITS" DVD was 3.57 and "All Videos Ever Made" 3.4 (that's very bad)! So you can see it has gotten better over the years.
The concert has been interspersed with an interview with Per sitting by the ocean where he talks about the concerts, fans et cetera. Nice bits and pieces. The DVD is subtitled, a first! Both in English and in German. The German subtitles have a problem though; the letter ß (double s) has for some reason been changed to ü (y). I also see some problems with the English subtitles that could've been avoided. Didn't anyone watch this before the pressing?
Another, more annoying problem is that running the DTS audio track there are a few audio drop-outs, while the Dolby Digital track is spotless. There is also a plain stereo track.

Per's solo videos are included after 12 years. I never liked Jonas Åkerlunds Gessle videos, but here they are, and they look decent. Son of a Plumber's videos are here as well, they are of the same quality as the older ones.

Finally, the 100 tribal videos are actually not all available on YouTube, so that's good. And they've solved the lower resolution of Per's home videos by showing them picture in picture.  A fine solution indeed.

Enough moaning, the DVD is "free" and is very worth its price, when you don't knitpick it, but as a reviewer it's my job to knitpick.

For you in countries that may not get the release try ordering via Gessle.com (Bengans) or Hotstuff. They both ship worldwide and they both carry the LP.

"Gessle Over Europe - the 2009 club tour captured live!

Since Roxette’s ”Room Service” tour in the fall of 2001, Sweden has been able to keep one of their true pop superstars more or less for themselves. Starting with 2003’s massively successful Swedish solo comeback “Mazarin”, Gessle kept himself busy in Sweden as a solo act or reuniting with his former group Gyllene Tider. But in the spring of 2009, the Roxette songwriter Per Gessle finally took an acclaimed step back to the international scene.

With a back catalog of songs from multi-million selling Roxette albums as well as solo material from his 1997 international debut “The World According To Gessle” to the 2005 double package “Son Of A Plumber” and last year’s “Party Crasher” album, Per had plenty to choose from.

Between April 16 and May 10 fans in Finland, Norway, Denmark, Germany, Poland, The Czech republic, Switzerland, Belgium, Holland and England could experience a seemingly never-ending stream of Gessle-penned hits in an intimate club environment. They got revamped Roxette classics like ”Joyride” and ”The Look” next to more recent solo material like ”Hey Mr DJ” and ”Doesn’t Make Sense”—all in a new and inspired setting that made even a more than 20 year old-faithful like “Dressed For Success” seem like it was written yesterday.

But why did he do it? ”First of all to have a blast on stage with this incredible band. And then I wanted to get out there and say, ‘Hey—these are my songs’. My music is much more well-known than I am. People all over the world can sing along to the Roxette classics, but they don’t know that I’ve written them. So the idea was to perform some of my English favorites while putting a face to the songs”, Gessle smiles.

Summing up some of the brilliant musicians he’s been touring with in Sweden the last years—Helena Josefsson (vocals), Clarence Öfwerman (keyboards), Christoffer Lundquist (guitar/vocals) and Magnus Börjeson (bass/vocals) plus the seasoned Roxette anchor Pelle Alsing (drums)—Per quickly found the high-energy power pop drive he was looking for.

The sound was guitar based, gritty and in your face. Fat, ringing Gibson chords against three-part harmony vocals in the choruses. Heavy and feather light at the same time, constantly accompanied by a singing, whistling and cheering crowd.

The tour gave Gessle the chance to dust off Roxette rockers like ”Sleeping In My Car”, ”She Doesn’t Live Her Anymore”, ”Opportunity Nox” and ”7Twenty7” and up-tempo solo hits like ”Stupid”, ”Do You Wanna Be My Baby?” and ”C’mon”. The energetic pop drive was mixed with the thoughtful melancholy of ”Late, Later On”, ”Wish I Could Fly” and the majestic set closer ”Queen Of Rain”.

”I had no idea what the reaction would be. Over the years I’ve learned not to have too big expectations—just do it and see what happens. But the public reaction was overwhelming and after a few shows only—I think it was Copenhagen—I suddenly realized why I was back playing the clubs after all these years. It was terrific to be on stage and do all these songs again.”

All this and more is captured on ”Gessle Over Europe”, a real treat for fans who wants to re-live or experience this quite remarkable club tour. With 21 live recorded tracks on CD, the complete final show at Cirkus in Stockholm on May 9 on DVD plus assorted goodies featuring 100 “home videos” filmed during the tour as well as additional clips and interviews taken from Per’s international solo career, ”Gessle Over Europe” deliver more than a Roxette or Per Gessle fan could ever hope for. You don’t get any closer than this, without actually standing on the stage yourself.

The vinyl collector Per Gessle also has made sure that ”Gessle Over Europe” will be released as a vinyl double album, which is great news for those who think today’s music business would be better off with albums like ”Frampton Comes Alive” or ”Made In Japan”. And if you wonder whether it’s possible to maintain a true pop heart after more than two decades of international chart successes and World tours, just listen to the inspired take of Paul Revere & The Raiders ”(I’m Not Your) Steppin’ Stone” from 1966. It hasn’t sounded better than this in a long time…"

See scans, here and here.

It may also interest you that Night of the Proms is on Twitter: @nightoftheproms.

royalball contributed to this article.

First, let me present to you some graphs of "Neverending Love." The top one is the 1986 release, the middle is from 1997 and the bottom is the new 2009 release. As you can see the sound has gotten more compact for every release. But is this a good thing? There's no right answer to that question, some songs are better more compressed and some aren't. In my opinion, pop music generally doesn't suffer from this, as long is it's not overly compressed and/or distorted. What gets lost is the dynamic range.
We're using "Neverending Love" as an example here and the song is much much louder on the new release, but I feel that the song sounds better than before so it's not just louder.

The sound of these albums is nothing short of amazing! The bass punches like it hasn't done before, the highs are crisp like a razor, and like I said - pop music doesn't usually suffer from this kind of compression. There's much more presence in the songs, I feel almost like I'm in the studio at times. The sound of first and foremost "Look Sharp!" and "Joyride" is truly great, the sound of these albums was very dated. Now they both feel like they were more or less recorded in 2009. "Pearls of Passion" was already remastered once, but gets the treatment again, with good results. "Tourism" sounds as perfect as the other albums, especially the studio tracks, but also the live material. Two tracks that sound extra excellent are the country version of "It Must Have Been Love"and the live version of "Things Will Never Be the Same."

"Crash! Boom! Bang!" is my favorite Rox album and the remaster does not disappoint. "Crashing Guitars" is even more crashing, and "What's She Like?" sounds better than ever. "Honey butt, keep your big mouth shut!" "Love is All" is magical, sounds more like a hymn than ever before… Over to newer albums!"Have a Nice Day" and "Room Service" both sound better than their older counterparts, but not that much better. Obviously this is because by 1999 people had learned how to make CDs sound as nice as vinyl records. As far as I can tell none of these CDs are encoded in HDCD format.

By the way, "Soul Deep" on "Joyride" is so much better than the original boring version, but the best version of all is on the B-side of "Church of Your Heart".

Too bad EMI feels that the majority of the bonus tracks should be available as digital downloads only. There are many among them that I personally would have liked on CD, and not on a semi-decent 256 Kbit AAC-file (iTunes). According to Per there were talks about a box with all albums and a bonus CD with all the bonus tracks, but the plans were scrapped.

What else can I tell you? The "Joyride" inner sleeve is actually like the original, scrapped, gatefold sleeve with the picture now where it was supposed to be, while the "Tourism" sleeve suffers from the small format and the generic back side. "Pearls of Passion" is no longer dubbed "The First Album" and "Look Sharp!" has the original LP sleeve with "A collection of 12 songs…" instead of the CD sleeve with "…13  songs…"

In conclusion, these releases are what every Rox fan needs to own if you like Roxette's music and have a decent stereo system. The albums sound terrific in headphones. 

I have not heard the iTunes material so I cannot review that.

One last tip: don't eat cheez balls while handling the new sleeves…

Update: Erik Broheden at Masters of Audio (former Polar Mastering) has remastered the albums.

So Per, let's fire away: what can we expect from Roxette at the Proms? Did you find any new dimensions in the songs?
- First of all this is a great opportunity for Marie and myself to get back together again without trying to do a full-scale Roxette concert. At this point we'd like to take everything concerning Roxette step by step. Also, of course, it will be thrilling to perform some of our biggest songs (especially "Wish I Could Fly," "It Must Have Been Love" and "Listen to Your Heart") with a big orchestra & choir. Clarence's & Christoffer's arrangements are truly stunning. And the idea of having strings on "The Look" sounds very South Park to me. I love it.

Sounds nice. And how will you meet Marie's nowadays more limited mobility on stage?
- Well, like I said, we take everything step by step. Time will tell how much she wants to work the stage. I don't know yet. But I don't consider this to be a problem. Her voice and presence are still magical.

Any advice regarding fans' (un)realistic expectations?
- No. Enjoy the shows. We certainly will.

Is there a possibility to see all the Prom versions get released after the tour? - How about a full orchestral album, like Metallica's "S & M"?
- Hmpff… I'm sure there will be DVD:s released with our Prom-performances. Full orchestral album? Not on the agenda at the moment, no.

How will you spend your spare time on the road? Songwriting, business or simply relaxing?
- We're actually bringing a serious amount of equipment to Belgium & Holland to make some groundbreaking recordings in the hotel corridors… How about that?

Aha, I know that concept, the last time that happened the nice "Tourism" album surfaced! In that regard, what Roxette songs do you regret to not have released as a single?
- You know me; I'm born, raised and bred on 7"-singles. Every thing I create starts off as a "single" in my head. That's the way I am, that's how I work. But the decision what should/shouldn't become a radio-single or the lead teaser for an album is basically made by the various record companies. You have to trust that they know their own markets. At least, that's what you would expect in the olden days when we were having tea with the Queen.

And on the other hand, what Roxette singles should have never made it?
- Same answer there.

Continuing that thought, what's the reason for ignoring "Fireworks" in all the hits compilations, even the Rox Box?
- I guess it wasn't big enough. There are so many other Rox tracks that kick its ass. And on the RoxBox we decided to use demos and other uplifting stuff instead. If you desperately want "Fireworks," I recommend a purchase of the magnificent "Crash! Boom! Bang!" album. No serious collection is complete without it. I hear it's out soon…

What are the plans for Roxette after the Proms?
- We'll see what happens and check our pulses. But yes, we'd love to make some more recordings.

So you are longing for a new Roxette studio album after all those compilations and solo releases?
- Well, I'm a writer. I love to write songs. Then I love to record them. So yes, I always find myself halfway into a recording situation and it would be lovely to make some new splendid landmarks with the divine Ms. F.

What about those Roxette demos you mentioned on Roxette.se? The ones not included on the re-masters.
- They're still in the vaults. They will be released eventually, I'm sure.

Speaking of releases, how about finally releasing some of Roxette's live material on DVD? Also, will there be some Roxette DVD remasters? The ones released are quite bad, quality-wise.
- Yea, I know. Most of the stuff that you're interested in is owned by jolly EMI and at the moment it's really hard to get any answers or directions out of them. They're in a complicated state of business. I guess big things will happen in due time. However, we try to be on the case as we'd love to have everything available just as much as you do. Trust me.

How about including some behind-the-scenes material? Åsa films a lot, right?
- We all shoot film all the time. We'll use the best parts down the road, like we've always done.

Is there still some dream you'd like to fullfill with Roxette?
- Yes, I'd love us to do another great album and a world tour. I won't promise it will happen though. But it certainly would be great fun.

How does it feel to work with Roxette again?
- Halleluja!!

On a totally different matter, have you seen Jonas Åkerlund's latest video: Rammstein's "Pussy," if so, how did you like it?
- I know Jonas very very well. I know how all this happened. And he did a great job as always. It's nothing I would've participated in but it's OK by me.

Will you ever work with Max Martin?
- I don't know. I don't know him. What should we do? And why?

Ha ha, OK, we'll find a reason. Before you used to make demos with drum machines and loops, but also with Micke Syd. How do you handle demo rhythm tracks these days?
- I only make acoustic demos these days. No arrangements, no intros, no solos, no double choruses. I leave all that to the real studio sessions. It's more fun like that. Much more creative. I love the input I'm getting from C&C.

Are you going back to the US with Roxette, or Plumber too for that matter?
- Hope so, yes. We're still trying to grab a decent record deal for these two up and coming youngsters, Marie & Per.

And finally, over to Gyllene Tider. Both you and Mighty Mike Syd have mentioned you are interested in a continuation…?
- I'm sure that will happen one of these years. It's a great little band.

With that our date with Per is over for this time. We thank him and leave him packing for The Big Apple. Meanwhile, enjoy a clip from the new DVD.

Update: The tracklist has been compiled:

P4 tracklist, October 24, 20:00-21:00 CET.

1. Dressed For Success
2. The Party Pleaser
3. Wish I Could Fly
4. Stupid
5. I Have a Party In My Head (I Hope It Never Ends)
6. Listen To Your Heart
7. Do You Wanna Be My Baby?
8. Opportunity Nox
9. Doesn't Make Sense
10. Joyride
11. The Look
12. Hey Mr DJ (Won't You Play Another Love Song)
13. (I'm Not Your) Steppin' Stone