STOCKHOLM - Per Gessle received the Guldapa (Golden Monkey) at the Swedish Hit Music Awards tonight. “This is my first Golden Monkey as a matter of fact,” Per commented when receiving the prize. The prize is Radio Rix’s special award for the most played artist during the year. Per once again wore all black, with a Clockwork Orange T-shirt.

  Per also won a Guldälg (Golden Moose) award for best Swedish song with “Här kommer alla känslorna.” “It’s me again,” Per said with a smile when he came back on stage. “I think ’När vi två blir en’ should have won,” he continued. Miio was also nominated in the category with their cover of Per’s Gyllene Tider song.

  Per performed “Känslorna” on the show, playback.

  The Rasmus, a group selected as the warm-up act for Roxette’s “Room Service” tour in Scandinavia, won the award for best foreign song with “In the Shadows”.

• Radio Rix (In Swedish)
• Swedish Hit Music Awards (In Swedish)

STOCKHOLM (UPDATED) - Per Gessle is one of the artists to perform on the “Världens Barn” Gala (World’s Children), which will be broadcast by SVT on November 7 between 18:15-19:00 and 20:00-21:00 CET.


  This event is organized by Radiohjälpen’s Världens Barn and SVT and will be hosted by Kattis Ahlström and Hans Rosenfeldt. Many personalities are to perform during the gala, like artists Pernilla Wahlgren, Charlotte Nilsson, Robert Wells, Per Gessle and Tomas Ledin. The goal for 2003 is to raise 130 million kronor ($16 million) for the children of the world.


  In addition, Per will also perform, alone this time - the last time was with Roxette, on TV4’s “Faddergalan” (Sponsor a Child Gala) that will be broadcast on November 28.

• SVT’s Världens Barn site (In Swedish)
• Faddergalan (In Swedish)
• Aftonbladet’s article (In Swedish)

STOCKHOLM - The Swedish broadcasting company SVT has published a list of entrants in the national selection to the Eurovision Song Contest 2004. The list has 28 songs, but four more will be named later. These four will come from specially invited song writers and among them is Per Gessle.

 Per has contributed to the contest before. In 1980, he wrote the song “För dina bruna ögons skull” (“Because of your brown eyes”) together with Mats MP Persson. The song was performed by Lasse Lindbom Band. It finished last. Per also wrote the lyrics to Lena Philipsson’s song “Kärleken är evig” in 1986, and in 2000 he wrote the song “Högt i det blå” for Sven-Ingvars, but the fact that Per had written the song was leaked to the public so the song was cut. This time, however, Per may be a stronger candidate, but that’s only if he decides to take part.

 The Swedish contest, also called Melodifestivalen, will take place in February. The Eurovision Song Contest will take place in Istanbul, Turkey, in May.

Daniel Alvedahl contributed to this article.

• Expressen article (in Swedish)
• List of selected songs

STOCKHOLM - Per Gessle is one of the artists that will perform at ZTV’s and TV3’s music awards gala “Swedish Hit Music Awards” on November 9th at Hovet in Stockholm. More artists will be confirmed shortly. Currently the only confirmed, besides Per, are Black Eyed Peas, Atomic Kitten and The Rasmus.

  The artists nominated in the 11 categories are chosen by ZTV’s music staff, and by the viewers’ choice, who will take the three-kilo award “Guldälgen” (“Golden moose”). Per Gessle is nominated in the “best Swedish song” category with “Här kommer alla känslorna”.

  The gala will be broadcast live on ZTV between 17:30 and 22:00 CET and partially on TV3 between 18:00 and 20:00 CET.

• ST’s article
• ZTV (In Swedish)

HELSINKI - This just in! Per Gessle will be in Hyppönen Enbuske Experience tonight at 21:00 on Nelonen. He will be interviewed by comedienne Krisse Salminen. The TV show is live, but the interview was recorded earlier today. According to our sources, the interview was “very funny.” Because all the Finns are going to Per’s concert at that time, they have to wait until Sunday, when the show is re-run.

  Per has also been interviewed by MTV3. His insert will be broadcast during Huomenta Suomi morning show tomorrow. According to the schedule on their website, it will be on at 8:12.

KALMAR/STOCKHOLM - As previously reported, SVT1 will broadcast the awaited documentary about Per “Per Gessle - Ta en kaka till!” tonight at 20.00 CET.


 Hans Engholm and Anders Karlsson have recorded the documentary and explained to Peter Åhlé, from Oskarhamns Tidningen, about the experience.


 It all started with the release party held in Halmstad on June 10th. Engholm didn’t really think “Mazarin” would become such a hit. “We were asked by EMI and Per’s manager Marie Dimberg to record the release party for the album at Hotell Tylösand,” explains Engholm to Barometern. It was not clear, at that point, what it would be used for.


When the single “Här kommer alla känslorna (på en och samma gång)” started to be played on the radio and Engholm and Karlsson got to hear the whole album, they understood that it would become something big. “We contacted SVT and asked them if they were interested [in the material], they said ’sounds exciting’, and now it’s on its way. The 30-minute long “Ta en kaka till!” will be on TV tonight.”


 The documentary features an interview with Per at his home, live footage from Slottskogsvallen in Gothenburg (with 22,000 in the audience), rehearsals, and a bus trip through Halmstad. “Our point in the documentary was to describe Per Gessle 2003. There’s no going-backs, no Gyllene Tider or Roxette. The film goes just around ’Mazarin’,” says Engholm.


 The film speaks about Per’s love for Halmstad, for the Swedish language and how much fun he has with music. “Why he does this instead of “sitting in a castle in France counting money,” says Engholm. “Mazarin” was recorded during the winter in Christoffer Lundquist’s studio in Skåne. Then Per worked hard with the camera and the result can also be seen in tonight’s program.


 In addition, their company, Produktionsbolaget, will make the DVD for Mazarin. Both Engholm and Karlsson agree with saying that it is very nice to work with Per, “he is nice, simple, engaged and professional.”

• Article in Barometern.se (in Swedish)

OSLO (UPDATED) - Per Gessle performed at Oslo night club Rockefeller yesterday night in front of crowd of a thousand fans.

  The set list for this concert was quite similar to the one played during the tour through Sweden. Per started off with “Kung Av Sand” and went through most of the songs included in his last album “Mazarin” and, of course, Gyllene Tider songs. Some old solo songs, such as “Speedo” or “Regn” that were played in the first concerts in Sweden, were left out. The set list:

Kung av sand

Vilket håll du än går

Gungar

Inte tillsammans, inte isär

(Hon Vill Ha) Puls

På en promenad genom stan

Timmar av iver

Flickan i en Cole Porter-sång

Jag tror du bär på en stor hemlighet

Smakar på ett regn

Här kommer alla känslorna

Födelsedag

Spegelboll

Juni, juli, augusti



Extras:



Om du bara vill

Tycker om när du tar på mej

Det är över nu

Gå & fiska

Sommartider

Tomorrow Per will give the last concert of his summer tour in Club Tavastia, Helsinki.

  Update: Click the picture on the right to see the band’s original song list in full size.

Ketil Nordgaard and Felicity Brown contributed to this article

• Article in VG (in Norwegian)

STOCKHOLM - Per’s Swedish tour this summer was a huge success, as we all know. Expressen has some statistics to back this up. A total of 157,000 people saw Per live in concert during his Sommar-Mazarin tour. Here is a list of the concerts and their number of attendance:

• Halmstad, Jul 7: 13,000
• Helsingborg, Jul 30: 12,000
• Skövde, Aug 1: 8,000
• Finspång, Aug 2: 8,000
• Varberg, Aug 3: 12,000
• Malmö, Aug 5: 10,000
• Göteborg, Aug 6: 22,000
• Kalmar, Aug 8: 9,000
• Jönköping, Aug 9: 7,000
• Karlskrona, Aug 10: 7,000
• Stockholm, Aug 12: 17,000
• Sundsvall, Aug 14: 6,000
• Leksand, Aug 15: 9,000
• Karlstad, Aug 16: 7,000
• Eskilstuna, Aug 17: 10,000

Per thinks one of the highlights was the mid-August concert in Stockholm. “Over 17,000 wonderful people showed up. Playing in Stockholm has always been tough for a country boy like me, but eventually it was an excellent concert,” says Per.

  “The tour was fantastic, but all too short,” Per said to Expressen. “I hope there will be a follow-up.”

• Expressen article (in Swedish)

OSLO - Per Gessle will appear on the Norwegian TV2’s talk-show “Senkveld med Thomas og Harald” (Late Night with Thomas and Harald) tonight. As the name indicates, the program is hosted by Thomas Numme and Harald J. Rønneberg, who will also interview Hege Schøyen, Kjersti Holmen and Alex Rosén during the program.


“Senkveld” runs between 22.15 and 23.15 CET and, according to TV2’s website, it will also be broadcast online, after logging in.

• Norwegian TV2 - Senkveld med Thomas og Harald
• “Senkveld” Web-TV (Login is required)

STOCKHOLM - It was a relaxed Per Gessle who visited the second to last episode of the TV show “Ola 21:30” the other day. He had just gotten back from France. They joked around and blind tested Leif’s Lounge’s “own” beer Leif’s Lager (which in reality is Krönlein’s Three Hearts Lager) with two other brands. “Do I make my own beer?” Per decided incorrectly that Carlsberg was the correct one, and judged Leif’s Lager “Ewww, I sure hope this isn’t the one…”

 When asked, Per claimed he tries to be a good father. Per is not afraid of dropping Gabriel “He’s six you know” Per joked. He also said that his own father maybe wouldn’t have liked him to become a musician. Per’s father, Kurt Gessle, died in 1978, the same day Expressen published the first article ever about Gyllene Tider. “My mom recently told me that dad would probably have freaked out if he had known I had become a musician.”


 They also played a little game. Ola asked Per what this was: “Now (pause) now (pause) now,” every four seconds. It didn’t take long before Per knew what it was about. When the “Joyride” album was hot, a copy of it was sold every four seconds. “But how did you know that,” an amazed Per asked the host. “I told you, I know things,” Ola answered mysteriously.


  Per also took a few questions from the 10-12 people small audience. Among the questions was “Will you do a digital concert on the net, like David Bowie, now that you’ve finished touring”? Per’s answer was no, he wants to continue touring.

  At the time of the show’s taping the stabbing (and later, murder) of Sweden’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Anna Lindh, hadn’t yet occured so this was not discussed in the show.