Expressen has an article on Roxette’s promotional tour debut in MixFest, Boston. According to the paper, the MixFest stage was the largest ever in New England. The festival was a success: 25,000 people were present. (Update: Boston Herald reports that there were “sold out crowd of close to 40,000”)

Roxette started with the new US single “Wish I Could Fly” and continued with their #1 hits “It Must Have Been Love”, “Joyride”, “Listen To Your Heart” and “The Look”.

“This is wonderful,” said Marie right after the concert on backstage. “It feels like everybody know these songs. At least they are not forgotten.” Per was also very satisfied. “We think that two songs were a little bit too slow, but otherwise it went very well,” he says in Expressen. “Much better than we dared to anticipate.”

• Expressen’s Swedish article (check out the great pic!)

According to Expressen, Roxette is going to visit the popular NBC talk show “Tonight with Jay Leno” in December. The article doesn’t tell if the show is recorded during their promotional tour or if they come back in the States to shoot the show.

• The Tonight Show with Jay Leno
• Expressen’s Swedish article

“Sure it would be cool to break through in States again, but it’s not the end if won’t,” says Per in Aftonbladet. “When we were young we had so much at stake. Now we’re just having fun. If it goes well, it goes well. If not, so what?” he adds in Expressen. Marie agrees: “Success in the USA is like a bonus to us.”

Before this promotional tour started, Per and Marie were a bit worried if people don’t remember them anymore in the USA. So far everything’s looking good: the passport controller instantly recognized them when they arrived.

Both Per and Marie have their families with them. “Unfortunately they can’t be with us for the whole time because of the school back home,” Marie says.

• Aftonbladet’s Swedish article
• Expressen’s Swedish article

BOSTON – Roxette, accompanied by band members and managers, are back on U.S. soil, having begun a promotional tour that will take them cross-country… and back. Today, they appeared at Boston radio station Mix98.5’s “MixFest” where copies of their new Greatest Hits album sold out at the retail record store tent that was on-site. Look to The Daily Roxette for full coverage, including an exclusive interview with Per that will appear soon!

The schedule for tomorrow’s MixFest festival in Boston has been revealed on the Internet. Roxette will be playing on West Stage at 11.25am, followed by Fastball at 12.15pm. (Thanks to Sascha!)

• MixFest

In today’s Metro Stockholm, Roger A. Wallis, the chairman of SKAP (Association of Swedish Pop Music Composers) defends Napster, the Website that the recording industry wants to outlaw since it’s being used to download music illegally from the Internet.

Wallis was interviewed by Computer Sweden magazine. He says in the interview that Napster fills an important function, since it gives people an opportunity to find new music. “If people are interested enough, they will pay for concerts and physical stuff,” he claims.

Both Per and Marie are members of SKAP.

• Metro’s Swedish article
• SKAP (check “Medlemmar”, the membership list!)

“Schedule subject to change” it says on both the list published here previously, and on a more recent version appearing on the RoxNorthAmeriFans site. “It’s driving us crazy!” said one person involved in planning the tour at Edel America Records (EAR). “Planning a cross-country tour takes an incredible amount of rescheduling… and revising… and rebooking…” said another.

The biggest changes are the cancellation of the performance in Minneapolis and the addition of a large concert in California. These and other tour updates are available on the “RoxAttaq USA” site.

• Roxattaq USA (RoxNorthAmeriFans)

Read more…

If there is such a thing as an “official” site, then this one is really official! Roxette’s upcoming promotional tour of the United States is being featured on a Website maintained by a branch of the Swedish government.

The Swedish Information Service, a function of the Counsul General of Sweden, publishes “Swedish Events” both as a printed newsletter and as part of their Website. It is a listing of cultural events open to the public with participation of Swedish cultural personalities or information regarding aspects of Swedish culture.

The short article about Roxette’s tour, written by TDR News Editor Lars-Erik Olson, focuses primarily on the Times Square event and includes a link to Roxette.net for further information.

Because of the United Nations, and the fact that many Swedish companies have their U.S. headquarters in the Tri-State area surrounding New York City, there is a sizeable Swedish population in the vicinity. When Roxette last performed in the Big Apple during the Joyride tour, there were so many Swedes in the audience at the end of the concert shouting “En Gång Till!… En Gång Till!,” that the Americans – who had no idea what they saying – joined in as well!

With Roxette, Marie Fredriksson, and Gyllene Tider as popular as ever in Sweden right now, look for the Swedes in America to attend the public promo tour events, and – even more important to the new record label – to buy the album, if only as a souvenir!

• Swedish Information Service (Swedish Events on the Web)

Marie entered the top 40 album sales chart in Norway this week at #19 with her “Best of..” album. Marie performed on a big TV-show (Momarken) there last week-end, and it looks like this show and a couple of TV-adds helped her enter the chart.

- Ketil via RML

• VG List

The Holland-based Official Roxette Fanclub has put their website “under heavy construction”. The new site will be located on their own server — as soon as the Dutch telecom company has been able to supply their ADSL line.

As a sidenote, they are now linking people to TDR from their news page! We appreciate that.

• Official Roxette Fanclub