HELSINKI - FST’s (Finland’s Swedish Television) music interview series “Popsmart” returns this summer with a very interesting interview. On August 4th, Popsmart’s Micaela Metso will have a chat with Per Gessle. The 30-minute-long show will be on TV2 at 22.10 EET. It will also be shown at the same time on FST’s digital channel and rebroadcast on the digital channel on August 6th at 19.30 EET.

  Other visitors on the series this season will be Lars Ulrich of Metallica in the first episode, followed by Per, Carola Häggkvist, Eva Dahlgren, Ulf Ekberg of Ace of Base and Ola Salo of The Ark.

• Ilta-Sanomat article (in Finnish)

STOCKHOLM (UPDATED) - According to an article published today in Aftonbladet, both Per Gessle and Marie Fredriksson are on the guestlist to attend the Rolling Stones’s “Licks World Tour” concert in Stockholm tonight. “Per will definitely go, but Marie isn’t sure. If the weather is nice, she will prefer to go out on the boat [with her family],” tells Roxette’s manager Marie Dimberg to Aftonbladet.


  The concert will take place at Cirkus and is the third the Stones will give in Stockholm. Last 18th they played the Olympic Stadium and on the 20th at the Globe Arena.


  “The tickets for this concert disappeared so fast that it seems you have to be an artist or record business related to get one,” tells a source. Catarina Oscarsson from EMA Telstar, the promoter of the show, claims she doesn’t know, though, who wrote Per and Marie to the guestlist, “There’s actually no guestlist that I know of, we haven’t invited anybody special. Some of the tickets were sold via the [Stones] fan club for instance.”


  The Hellacopters will be the opening act for tonight’s show.


  Update: Aftonbladet has published pictures of Per and Marie at the concert, which they both enjoyed enormously. “Fantastic! This is the best I have ever seen,” said Marie, who was there with her husband Micke Bolyos, Per and Åsa Gessle, to Aftonbladet. “I will go home now and cry with joy,” Per exclaimed. “Give it 15 plus! 15 plus!” he added.

• Aftonbladet’s article (in Swedish)
• The Rolling Stones Official Website
• EMA Telstar
• The Hellacopters Official Website
• Aftonbladet’s article with pictures

STOCKHOLM - According to the site CDON the next single from “Mazarin” will be “På promenad genom stan” (7243-5528782) . Release date and b-side are yet to be decided.

• CDON

STOCKHOLM - Mats Ronander will be Per’s guest and open the shows during the “Mazarin” tour through Sweden. Ronander will offer a different and special performance together with Benneth Fagerlund on the keyboards, while he will play the acoustic guitar. They will perform songs out of Ronander’s repertoire as well as songs from other well-known songwriters.


  Ronander and Fagerlund have recently been on tour in Sweden with their show “Acoustic” during April and May.

• Mats Ronander’s website (in Swedish)

BORGHOLM - Per Gessle was one of the performers invited to the “Grattis Victoria” concert on the Swedish island Öland yesterday evening. The concert was organized to celebrate Crown Princess Victoria’s 26th birthday.

  Per performed two songs from his new album: “Födelsedag” and “Här kommer alla känslorna (på en och samma gång).” Especially the first song suited the situation perfectly, as its title means “Birthday” in English. Princess Victoria and her father, King Carl XVI Gustav, seemingly enjoyed the show immensely.

  Per and his band Mazarinerna apparently performed the songs “playback”, so that the music came from a tape, but Per sang live.

  Surprisingly, Per wasn’t the only one performing songs written by him. Peter Jöback performed “Varmt igen”, a song which Jöback released on his solo album this past winter and which is also included on Per’s new album.

STOCKHOLM - Aftonbladet has published a story about Marie who’s now working on new songs, as we told earlier this week. “She writes and records songs whenever she’s able to,” says manager Marie Dimberg to Aftonbladet. “She works when she feels like it. Sometimes it’s more intensive, sometimes less. Just like it always goes.”

  “She’s been talking about the album a long time. I suppose she’s now started to work on it,” says Per. “She has a studio at home, so she can record an album in her attic if she wants to.”

  “We decided that we’ll do solo albums after we finished ’Room Service’ in 2001. But after that Marie became ill,” Per sighs. “Lately I’ve been in contact with her quite a lot. She has a house in Halmstad and she’s been here for a couple of weeks now.”

  “Her condition hasn’t changed so much from the beginning of the year. She’s quite alright, spirited and fit, but everything that happened still affects her. All of us, in fact. It’s been a tough year for her, heavy medication and all.”

  Naturally Marie’s album doesn’t have a release date yet. Manager Dimberg also says that it’s not even clear if the album will be in Swedish or English. According to Dimberg, Marie has written songs in both languages.

• Aftonbladet article (in Swedish)

STOCKHOLM (UPDATED) - “Mazarin” is #1 for the third week in a row. The single “Här kommer alla känslorna” is also #1 now, after a week at #2 after Sertab from Turkey.

• GLF via Aftonbladet (In Swedish)

STOCKHOLM - As we reported some time ago, Per Gessle will perform at Swedish Crown Princess Victoria’s 25th Anniversary party on July 14th.

  The event, presented by Pernilla Månsson Colt and Ola Lindholm, is called “Grattis Victoria” (Congratulations, Victoria) and will be broadcast on SVT1 from 21.00 to 22.55 CET. Per is scheduled to appear, according to Aftonbladet, at 21.32 and 22.24 CET. International viewers will be able to view the show on SVT Europa.

  The program will have its re-run on July 19th at 15.05 CET.

STOCKHOLM - Per Gessle mentioned a while ago that Marie Fredriksson was working on a new solo album. Sources tell The Daily Roxette that she’s been working on new songs when her strength and recovery permit, as there is no established timetable for this project. According to Capitol, she’s currently on vacation with her family. She will continue working on her solo material this fall.

STOCKHOLM - Swedish phone operator Comviq/Tele2 offers their customers to go to select Gessle concerts for half price if you SMS a certain code to them. You can see more information on their site (see the link below).

  On a sidenote, Capitol Records Sweden told TDR today that the “Mazarin” DVD production has been upped to 9,000 copies due to demand.

• Comviq/Tele2’s offer (For Swedes only)