(Updated) According to a press release sent out today by the Göteborg Opera, Marie Fredriksson will perform in a gala for the World Childhood Foundation on May 18th.

The foundation was founded by H.M. Queen Silvia of Sweden in 1999 and in order to celebrate its 10th anniversary, the Göteborg Opera has organised this gala, which will be attended by the Royal Family. Other artists such as Peter Jöback, German violin virtuoso Anne-Sophie Mutter and mezzo-soprano Katarina Karnéus will participate in the gala as well.

World Childhood Foundation's work is aimed at the most marginalised children. "The goal is to promote the right of every child to its childhood and to work for better living conditions for children in danger. We must fight against the extreme  material, social and emotional poverty in which they livea," writes H.M. Queen Silvia on the foundation's homepage. Currently the foundation supports more than 100 projects in 14 countries.

All revenue from the gala will be donated to World Childhood Foundation.

Update April 2: According to the Göteborg Opera homepage, tickets will be on sale on April 6th at 12:00 CET. The tickets cost 1700 SEK and can only be purchased at the Opera Box Office personally (not over phone or email) since a personal ID must be show at the time of purchase. Maximum amount of tickets per person is two. Dress code is smoking or dark suit.

(Updated) - Per and the gang are having a blast rehearsing. "7Twenty7 has never been this loud!" Check out gessle.com for more photos.

Per is also asking for songs to play:

Hey you gals & guys out there. I'm in the middle of rehearsals and having a blast trying out songs I haven't played live before!! Just for the fun of it, would you mind requesting a couple of tracks you want us to perform? 3 per person would be great! I won't promise we'll play your favorites but you'll never know. The band is certainly in a good mood and we all look forward to this trip!!!!

Thanks so much for your participation.

 

Lots of luv from Mr Gee & The Heavy Metal Kids

 

On the evening of March 28, 1989, the telephone rang at Per Gessle's home in Halmstad. When Per answered, Roxette's manager Thomas Erdtman screamed down the other end that "The Look" was #1 on the U.S. Billboard chart!

Swedish radio P4 Retro celebrated the occasion with an hour of Roxette Special with a few rare demos!

Per talks quite a bit about Roxette in this telephone interview conducted by Petr Vizina, audio editor for the newspaper HN in the Czech Republic.  Among many other things, he talks about Marie and how her life changed after her illness, but that she likes to sing on stage again and that he's sure — not now, but next winter or next year — that Roxette will be ready to come back.

Vizina, who comes across as being very knowledgable and seems obviously be a Roxette fan himself, speaks — in English — with Per for about 24 minutes. He eventually gets around to asking about the upcoming "Party Crasher" tour and Per readily admits that "people don't know who I am."

"This is my 50th birthday present to myself," he says. "I'm not going to plug 'Party Crasher' to death, I'm going to play a compilation of what I've been doing for the past 30 years." The interview appears on the newspaper's online edition (iHNed.cz).

As announced earlier this month, Marie Fredriksson performed last Thursday in Café Opera, Stockholm, in an event called "Still rocking in the free world".

Together with Lasse Lindbom, Niklas Strömstedt, Mats Ronander, Annelie Rydé, husband Mikael Bolyos and son Oscar Bolyos, she remembered those great times in the '80s on Café Opera's stage. Marie covered Aretha Franklin's "I Never Loved A Man", "El Paso" and sang her own hit "Ännu doftar kärlek". The big surprise of the evening was however Marie's 12 year old son Oscar Bolyos, who performed Lenny Kravitz's "Stand By My Woman" and the Rolling Stones's "Jumpin' Jack Flash".

Videos and photos of the event can be found on Expressen, Aftonbladet and Hotgossip.

(Updated) - The Party Crasher concert in Copenhagen has been moved from Vega to Pumpehuset. March 17 - London show has been moved to O2 Islington Academy (formally the Carling Academy). Per comments:

these venues were changed because i prefer to play smaller venues (500-800 ppl) on this tour of mine. that has been my intention since day 1. shepherd's bush holds 2300 (way too big for someone like me!) and "large" vega takes about 1300 incl the balconies. "small" vega wasn't available so we set our eyes on pumpehuset.

now i'm happy!

p

 

STOCKHOLM (Updated) - The upcoming Party Crasher tour has been expanded, with a gig in the Man's hometown Halmstad. May 8 Per will play Sporthallen in Halmstad.

"I'm really looking forward to this trip around Europe. I consider it to be some kinda birthday present to myself to be able to play my favorites from The Gessle Box Of Songs In English.
"My ambition is to put together a guitar-based power-pop-set specially designed for the club scene! There will be loads of Roxette songs I haven't sung since the demo days but also favorites from the Plum, World According to… and of course Party Crasher. And why not a jolly cover, or two?
"I love the fact that we've been able to squeeze in a gig in cookin' Halmstad before the band vaporizes after the two gigs May 9 & 10 in Cirkus in Stockholm (other duties are in the can for my eminent musicians). Friday May 8 we'll be ready to roll the dice in Sporthallen in my hometown, with guitars almost-in-tune and smiles on our faces. Playing in Halmstad always makes my heart beat just a little bit faster."

 says Per.

Tickets will be available at Ticnet Wednesday March 18 at 09:00.

Swedish TV channel SVT interviewed Marie Fredriksson about the concert "Still rocking in the free world" which will take place at Café Opera, Stockholm, this coming Thursday. You can also find the rehearsal of "Jealous Guy" on SVT's homepage.

LOS ANGELES - Roxette is the Artist of the Month on Retro Rewind, a radio station based in Los Angeles. Dave Harris, Retro Rewind's host, says "Due to popular worldwide demand we’re pleased to announce that Roxette is once again artist of the month on Retro Rewind." Retro Rewind will play numerous songs from Roxette's vast library. The radio station will also broadcast a Roxette interview recorded September 2000.

The shows will be rebroadcast online of course.

The Swedish talkshow host Barbro "Babben" Larsson is back on TV with her show Babben & co. On the comeback show on March 21, Per will be performing live. Babben & co will be broadcast at 8pm CET on SVT1 and simultaneously on SVT World.

Reruns will be broadcast on March 22 (SVT1 and SVT24), March 23 (SVT1) and March 27 (SVT1). Check SVT World site for their program schedule.

The Swedish group Scotts was very successful on a popular Swedish TV-show called "Dansbandskampen" fall of 2008. The group ended up in second place of the competition. This spring they participated in "Melodifestivalen" (Swedish outtakes for the Eurovision Song Contest). Scotts' first album "På vårt sätt" went  #1 on the Swedish album chart the first week of 2009. On the album they have included a cover of "It Must Have Been Love".