MADRID - Palacio de los Deportes, the venue in this city where Roxette was going to play in October, was destroyed by a fire this morning.

  Tickets for the concert were to go on sale tomorrow, but now Roxette must first find a substitute venue. Palacio de los Deportes (“Sports Palace” in English) had a capacity of about 14,000 people and was one of the biggest concert venues in Madrid. It was here that Roxette played during their Crash! Boom! Bang! tour in 1994.

  One possible place for Roxette’s concert might be La Cubierta, a bull-fighting venue in Leganés, 10 kilometers from Madrid.

• El Mundo article (in Spanish, with additional pictures)

Inspired by the successful campaigns to get Roxette and Marie to go on tour, ¡Roxette Latino!, RunToRoxette and Roxette México have launched a Web page to ask Marie and Per to include Latin America in their Room Service tour, that will be starting in Europe. At the site, you can leave messages to Roxette and view all the messages already posted.

  Roxette’s songs from Room Service have reached some of the highest positions on mostly every chart all over Latin America, and many fans are waiting to see Roxette on stage once again.

BARCELONA - Tickets for the two concerts in Spain will go on sale this Friday. They will be available from the following places:

BARCELONA SHOW (in the “typical shops):
- Fnac, Revolver, Castello, etc. - these last two are record shops in the center of Barcelona - and then Servicaixa and El Corte Ingles (these two are
selling online).

MADRID SHOW:
- Servicaixa, Corte Ingles, Madrid Rock and Fnac.

  Further details, such as pricing, will be available soon. If anyone coming from abroad needs help in purchasing a ticket, RoxSpain is willing to help. Write to [email protected] with any questions.

• RoxSpain

UK fans may have reason to be optimistic about seeing a concert or two this winter. Per Gessle, in an answer to a question on the roxette.se site, said “We’re quietly planning to do some UK shows in December. It will happen if “Milk and Toast and Honey” and the album get the attention they deserve. M&T&H will be out in August, by the way.”

UPDATED As we reported earlier, Roxette’s forthcoming “Room Service” tour – reported to feature 33 songs – will premiere in Stuttgart in late September. After touring in Southern and Central Europe, Roxette will visit Russia, Estonia, Finland and their home country Sweden in November. The last concert - at least so far - will be in Gothenburg on November 17th.

  Roxette ended their last world tour in Moscow in May 1995. Exactly six years later, Per and Marie have been in Germany to announce that they will embark on a European tour later this year. With a dozen tour dates in Germany, it made sense for them to announce the tour there, in order to generate coverage in the German press.

  Read the full article for tour schedule and Per and Marie’s comments.

  Photo of fans enjoying Marie’s concert last summer in Stockholm by Lars-Erik Olson.

  UPDATE - We have now added links to sites offering tickets to Swedish concerts and some of the German concerts. Read more…

Roxette performed on the final episode of the Norwegian “Big Brother” show. “Big Brother” has become a great success in Norway, and the show was most likely seen by thousands of viewers.

• Big Brother site (In Norwegian)

In today’s Aftonbladet, Per is quoted as saying that the tour might be extended to include additional countries should it prove to be successful.

  “There is the possibility to continue the tour in other countries in Europe in December and after the new year perhaps they’ll be more countries,” Per said.

• Aftonbladet’s article (In Swedish)

Billboard.com published a story today (see “article continues” for full text) in which they talk about the upcoming European tour and – erroneously – report that Edel America is “due to release ’Room Service’ sometime this year.”

(Puls contributed to this story.)

• Billboard.com’s Article

Read more…

KOBLENZ - Per and Marie held two press conferences in Germany on Monday (one in Munich, the other in Dortmund), announcing that the premiere concert of their upcoming “Room Service” tour will take place in Stuttgart on September 25th, the first of 12 concerts planned for Germany.

  According to reports in the German press, Swedish stars Marie Fredriksson and Per Gessle announced a show that will include numerous “world-wide #1 hits.”

  Roxette wants to celebrate with 33 new and old chart-toppers such as “The Centre of the Heart,” “Sleeping in My Car,” and “Fireworks.”

  “We missed the feeling of being with thousands of fans singing on the stage,” said Gessle and he added, jokingly, that he has a very “expensive woman” and must finally raise cash again.

  Fredriksson, addressing the question “Why is Roxette starting its world tour in Germany, answered: “Germany is one of our largest markets. We have so many fans here, and we like the country.”
  Some of the other questions reporters asked included: “How do you keep yourselves fit?” - “Sleep alot, from time to time go to parties,” answered Per. “Why do you look so young, Marie?” - “That’s only make-up”, she said. “How do you spend your money?” - “I have five autos”, said Per. “And your wife?” Gessle laughs. “She drives a bicycle.”

  For the fans, a “Best of…” tour waits, with songs from Roxette’s 15-year career. Besides the new songs, “it’s really fun to play the old songs also” confessed Gessle. “We must absolutely play ’It Must Have Been Love’, for example.”

(TDR Reporter: Tina Engmann. Westfaelische-Rundschau photo: Althoff; used with permission.)

• Sueddeutsche Zeitung’s article (All links in German)
• WR’s article
• Nachrichten’s article

Read more…

At last Russian fans knew the day of Roxette’s coming to Russia. It is November 7th and 8th, 2001.

  In St. Petersburg, they will perform at the new Ice Palace. Built two years ago for the World Hockey Championship, it is one of the largest and best concert stages in Europe. Read more…