STOCKHOLM - Marie will be one of the celebrity guests attending a June 18 gala at Stadshuset (Stockholm City Hall) where Crown Princess Victoria will be handing out this year's prizes from the Marianne and Sigvard Bernadotte Artist Fund. The gala is even more special this year as Marianne Bernadotte, who is Victoria's great aunt, is celebrating her 85th birthday.

Marie is expected to perform during the event, along with Marianne Bernadotte's close friend Lill Lindfors, opera singer Barbara Hendricks with Staffan Scheja, and violinist Christian Svarfvar. Other special guests announced at this morning's press event, held at the Grand Hôtel, include ABBA singer Agnetha Fältskog, but it is uncertain for now whether she too will perform.

Tomorrow, April 24, Romanian radio station "Magic FM" will feature Roxette Day! The station, one of the biggest in Romania, will broadcast songs from their discography, as well as stories about Roxette.

TWITTER - Per Gessle has announced in one of his tweets at Twitter that Roxette's albums will be re-released this fall. The albums will be remastered and will come with additional bonus tracks such as B-sides and demos.  The booklets will also be re-designed. Release dates are not known yet.

Per is doing a signing session at Saturn in Hamburg Altstadt next Saturday. It will start at 15:00  and will last for about an hour.  More info, in German, can be found at Saturn's website.

(Updated) - Ahead of Per’s UK Concert, the BBC has given a little interview with the man himself. There is nothing new for fans in this interview, but it is nice to see Per mentioned in UK media!

Another little article has also appeared on the BBC today as well. Quite similar in content to the other one, but worth a mention here as well. The very popular site Digital Spy has a little spot as well.

The story of a possible Roxette reunion is also being spread by World Entertainment News Network (in this example, by the American Broadcasting Company network affliate in Tampa, Florida) and by the Toronto, Canada based Chart Attack.

Roxwriter contributed to this story.

HELSINKI - Per started his Party Crasher tour last night in Helsinki, Finland. And oh, what a night it was! Per absolutely rocked the place and the audience liked what they heard. The song choices were a bit surprising, especially since there were only two songs from the "Party Crasher" album. There were no less than five songs from the "Son Of A Plumber" album and the rather unknown song, "I Have A Party In My Head," seemed to get the biggest applause from the audience. Per didn't play any of his Swedish songs, but that was quite predictable since the tour extends outside the Nordic countries.

After the uninspiring supporting act Martinique and the carefully picked mix tape of Per's favorite songs, the gig started a little after 10pm. Then it went on like a train, in good and bad, and lasted about 1 hour and 50 minutes. Here's the set list:

Read more…

As this article is being written, Per and his band are being called back on stage to perform an encore before a noisy, raucous crowd in Helsinki, Finland. It's the first night of the Party Crasher tour and, like many other international tours involving Per Gessle, Helsinki is again serving as the first stop.  It's an exciting moment, one to be repeated over the next few weeks in venues across Europe.

Partly as a result of the obligatory pre-tour publicity campaign — the tour after all ended up being subtitled "The Man from Roxette" — and partly the result of the natural progression in the timeline that has marked the remarkable recovery story of Marie Fredriksson, there's been considerable mention in the media recently of a possible reunion of Per and Marie as Roxette.

Both Per and Marie, in speaking to various journalists and reporters, have over the last few months mentioned the possibility of some kind of Roxette project surfacing again.  Lately, Per's been quoted in an article appearing on Chart Attack as saying "I'm sure something will happen."  With both Per and Marie talking out loud, on the record, to reporters… not just once but repeatedly… it's now seemingly safe to say that it's not just possible, but extremely likely that we'll at least be able to hear Per and Marie again performing together as Roxette. Per has said that he and Marie recently picked up some acoustic guitars and sang some of Roxette songs together… to see how it felt. Apparently, it felt good for them both.

We congratulate Per (and his partners-in-music) on tonight's premeire concert.   Untold numbers of our readers are looking forward to attending one of the upcoming concerts on this tour, and The Daily Roxette looks forward to providing extensive coverage.  These are good days for fans of Per Gessle's music.  Still, as we enjoy the Party Crasher album, and hear Per singing Roxette material on stage again…  we know we're not alone when thinking about Helsinki tonight.  We wonder if it's too much to hope for that this favored first-stop city might be called into service yet once again?  It's not so silly, really… to consider the possibilty of Per and Marie jetting to various locales to give their fans a treat.  For example, fellow Scandinavians a-ha just did that in Brazil… flying in to do one concert in Sao Paulo and one in Rio. 

Yes, we're all a bit older and have learned to manage our expectations, but for now at least we'll once again entertain the idea of seeing both Per and Marie on stage together.   Our prayers, after all, were answered once before.

HELSINKI - Per Gessle starts his first-ever European solo tour in Helsinki tonight. Per is performing at Tavastia Klubi where he also performed during his "Mazarin" tour in 2003. Per's gig will start at 10pm EET.

Gessle will be supported by Martinique, aka Martin Josefsson. Martin is also the husband of Helena Josefsson who sings in Per's band. Martinique will start playing at 9pm EET.

Per has started his tweeting career enthusiastically. He has already answered dozens of fans' questions using his @PartyPleaser Twitter account and revealed some nice tidbits about the forthcoming tour.

The most interesting piece of information so far has been that Per has discussed with Marie about performing with him on the tour. "[S]he might pop up somewhere, we've talked about it," Per wrote in his tweet.

Another revealed fact is that the Stockholm concerts on May 9 and 10 will be filmed, and "most likely" there will be a live DVD available after the tour.

"Silly Really" has entered Sirius XM Satellite Radio's biggest station, Sirius Hits 1's chart at #27. This by requests only. Per comments to TDR: "Exciting!!!" Sirius XM has 22 million subscribers. The song is reviewed in Billboard magazine.

(Updated) - Head over to Gessle.com to see new photos and yet another video message from Per and his Heavy Metal Kids.

(Updated) - Per revealed a big surprise today; instead of playing his own songs on the Party Crasher tour, he's going to perform mostly cover tracks. Instead of an all-Gessle set list, Per and the band are going to perform only three Gessle-penned songs! Per sent us this message:

hola every-1! to celebrate my 30 years in pop music me and the heavy metal kids are going to play the greatest pop songs ever for you guys and gals! it's gonna be so cool to play 'eye of the tiger' and other favorites on stage!!!

and hey, don't forget to send your suggestions for songs! we still haven't decided which three songs will be the mr gee songs we play!!!!

luv, p.

We also received a preliminary set list:

1. Let's Dance
2. Send Me A Postcard
3. SOS
4. to be determined
5. Livin' On A Prayer
6. Poison
7. To The Moon And Back
8. Mmm Mmm Mmm Mmm
9. California Sun
10. Eye Of The Tiger
11. Take My Breath Away
12. to be determined
13. Ever Fallen In Love
14. Every Breath You Take
15. Manic Monday
16. Friday I'm In Love
17. Carrie
18. Pour Some Sugar On Me
19. Born In The USA
20. Don't You (Forget About Me)
21. Wish You Were Here
22. Africa
23. You
24. Words Of Love
25. to be determined

The missing songs will be selected from the ones fans have requested.

Editor's note: As many of you already know, this was an April Fool's joke. Per's set list still remains a secret…