German regional channel B-TV (Baden-TV) today showed “Crush on You” and “Dressed for Success” – recorded live at the Stuttgart show yesterday.
The on-air personalities said that it was an exclusive, and there may be more shown tomorrow on their daily call-in show “Bernie and Co”.
The entire concert was filmed yesterday, including the opening act. The channel can be seen across Europe via satellite.

• B-TV (In German)

So, Roxette launched their Room Service Tour in Munich yesterday evening. According to roxettenews.com, published by the Official Fanclub, Roxette came on stage at 21:15 and played a 20-song set.

  Surprisingly, even Göteborgs Posten’s reporter Johan Lindqvist liked what he saw and heard. Especially he mentions Jonas Åkerlund, who had created a stunning stage show with images displayed on a large silver screen. 4 out of 5 to Roxette from Lindqvist.

  (Mikael Gardh contributed to this article.)

• Gˆteborgs Posten article

Read more…

Roxette’s European tour (even though EMA still refers to it as a “world tour”) is set to begin today in Munich, Germany. This is their first full-scale tour since Crash! Boom! Bang! world tour ended in 1995.

  Swedish newspapers have published articles on their tour premiere. Aftonbladet has interviewed Per about his and Marie’s families on the tour. Both Per and Marie are taking their kids with them and that’s why the tour is not so intense. “We try to have 2 weeks of work and then a couple of weeks’ break,” says Per.

  Expressen tells that Per has been a little sick lately, but not as sick as on one of the previous tours when he had eaten old French fries and had a stomach ache for a week - just before the tour was set to begin. “I missed the final rehearsal and came to the tour premiere without practising,” says Per.

  Per also tells to Expressen that they are going to play 23 songs. The stage show, designed by director Jonas Åkerlund, will be “bigger and more trendy” than their previous tour sets. Per doesn’t want to reveal anything, but he says that the show will be “more boasting than before, that’s for sure.”

  According to Expressen, both today’s Munich concert and the forthcoming Brussels concert are sold out. The Swedish concerts in Karlstad, Stockholm and Gothenburg are nearing to be sold out with only a couple of hundred tickets left.

• Aftonbladet article
• Expressen article
• Gˆteborgs Posten article

ST. PETERSBURG - As even the tickets to the upcoming shows are colored in a Room Service “style” (red and black colors), it’s a little surprising that the posters which have appeared on the streets of Saint-Petersburg are blue and white.

Roxette’s support act in Sweden, Finland and Estonia will be a band called The Rasmus, reports Finnish tabloid Ilta-Sanomat.

  The Rasmus is a Finnish rock band who is praised for its powerful performing charisma. The members of the band are young (avg. 21-year-old), but they have been performing together for about 7 years already.

  The band’s latest album was produced by former Roxette guitarist Micke “Nord” Andersson. According to Ilta-Sanomat, he recommended The Rasmus to be Roxette’s support act.

• The Rasmus

“Stars 2001,” a show that will include Roxette performing at the Köln Arena in Cologne on August 15th, will be webcast live on the internet!

  German TV Channel SAT.1, who will broadcast the show on August 17th, reports on their website that you´ll also see backstage scenes, and interviews and chats with some of the stars! It´s not mentioned if there will be a chat with Roxette.

  If the lineup for the show that is published on their site is accurate, then Roxette will be the third group on stage that evening.

• SAT.1 Online (In German)

Gay & Company, the promoter of the Roxette tour in Spain, found a new place for Roxette’s concert in Madrid, after the fire that destroyed Palacio de los Deportes. G & C confirmed that the concert will take part in La Riviera, a venue with a capacity of 2,500 people. The concert will take place on October 25th. Tickets will be available from next Monday at Fnac, Madrid rock, El Corte Inglés and Servicaixa, with a price of 6,000 pesetas (36.06 euros). Tickets will be also available through internet at www.elcorteingles.es and www.serviticket.com.

• La Riviera
• Pics from La Riviera

Russian national music channel Muz-TV announced during a news break that Roxette have asked for 50 kg of ice, which they will need during their concert in Moscow’s Olympiisky, which is to be held on November 8, 2001. Why do they need the ice? No one knows…

Per Gessle, in a telephone interview with a Mexican publication, has indicated that the forthcoming “Room Service” tour will include Latin American countries such as Mexico, Brazil and Argentina in January and/or February.

  Speaking with Reforma’s reporter from Stockholm, Per talked about the new album and the state of “pop” music.

  “If with ’Have A Nice Day,’ Roxette experimented with electronics, with ’Room Service’ we decided to return to the sound that granted us world-wide popularity one decade ago, in a spontaneous way,” Per said (subject to translation).

  “I believe that this disc has a much warmer sound and reflects a happier state,” he said. He feels there are many things in common with ’Look Sharp’, because fundamentally they were made under the same idea: to enter the studio and to see what happened. “At least two songs undeniably have the sound of Roxette in the ’80s,” he recognized.

  The musician explained that the return to their classic sound does not mean that the group has not evolved, but that they did not want to hide their “trade name” (sound), because it would be in opposition to the idea of the pair to create honest music.

  Roxette has had experience recording in Spanish but, in the opinion of Gessle, they will not be singing again soon in that language. “It was something pleasant, but many fans know what each word that we sang in Spanish means, and I must recognize that we didn’t speak that language very well,” he said.

  “When we recorded those versions, we trusted the translation, but we thought that each language has its rate, its peculiarites, and perhaps in those covers we did not say exactly what we wanted. Nevertheless, Spanish is a wonderful language, and if we don’t do anything for ’Room Service,’ perhaps we will for the next disc of Roxette,” he added.

• Reforma.com article (In Spanish)

STUTTGART - Over the past week, workers have been busy putting up promotional posters for the Roxette concert. Now, nearly every corner of Stuttgart is full of “Room Service Tour-2001” posters.