News archive - December 2009
More South American tour dates
The Peruvian website terra.com.pe has published what seems to be the full South American tour schedule. It includes three additional concerts in Brazil and one concert in Chile. Here is the list of dates:
4 March: Luna Park, Buenos Aires, Argentina
6 March: Movistar Arena, Santiago, Chile
9 March: Alameda Quality Center, Bauru, Brazil
10 March: Credicard Hall, Sao Paulo, Brazil
13 March: Citibank Hall, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
14 March: Chevrolet Hall, Belo Horizonte, Brazil
16 March: Centro de Convenciones, Brasilia, Brazil
18 March: Chevrolet Hall, Recife, Brazil
20 March: Siara Hall, Fortaleza, Brazil
(Thanks to chrisxbr for the link)
BBC radio special / New live dates / Apparatjik concert and single
On Wednesday 30 December, at 5pm UK time, BBC Radio Devon will broadcast an "Ending on a High Note" a-ha special.
The BBC website provides the following description of the radio special:
"In an exclusive documentary with the Norwegian trio as they prepare to celebrate the 25th anniversary of "Take on me", Richard Green chats with Morten, Paul and Mags to find out all
about their quarter of a century in the music industry and why they've finally decided to bring the curtain down on
a-ha forever."
According to a-ha.com it is "hoped that the programme will be available on several other BBC local radio stations early in 2010".
Since the last news update the concerts in Rio and Sao Paulo have been officially confirmed by a-ha.com. The concert in Buenos Aires on 4 March has also now been confirmed. This will be the first a-ha concert in Argentina since June 1991.
The concert that was planned for 14 March will now be held in Belo Horizonte instead of Recife, which was initially reported. The name of the venue is the same though - Chevrolet Hall. Although the date hasn't been confirmed by a-ha.com yet, tickets are on sale through the Brazilian Ticketmaster website.
On 21 December Magne's side project Apparatjik announced their first ever concert (...or at least some sort of live event). It will be held at the WMF Club in Berlin on 1 February 2010 as part of "Club Transmediale", which is a festival for "Adventurous Music and Related Visual Arts".
The festival's website says:
"Inspired by the Bauhaus movement, the 'Bauhaus Bühne', and Lazlo Moholy-Nagy's work 'Light-Space-Modulator' from 1930 in particular,
this first ever performance of Apparatjik will take place inside a specially constructed cube at the WMF on Monday, February 1st, 2010."
Tickets are available here.
Apparatjik has also announced their first single release (although technically, "Ferreting" was released as a promo single last year). "Electric Eye" will be available as a limited edition 7" vinyl single in 1000 numbered copies.
The single can be pre-ordered from Apparatjik's new webstore at TheOutland.com, along with a special T-shirt designed by Moods of Norway.
And on 24 December, VG's paper edition presented a list of the 10 most well-dressed men in Norway in 2009, put together by a jury of 18 people from the Norwegian fashion scene. Magne is number 9 on the list. The list can also be seen online here.
Twitter / 2010 Calendar / Bauru concert / "Alpha Beta" in Scotland
a-ha-live.com is now also on Twitter, where I will try to post a message every time I update this news page.
Maybe I'll post some other useful info as well. You can follow me here:
twitter.com/ahalive_com
The West Of The Moon 2010 a-ha fan calendar is now finished and can be ordered from lulu.com. The price is $12.49 and there is a preview on the site where you can see the pictures for all 12 months.
Marcela Constantino, the manager of the Alameda Quality Center in Bauru, has confirmed that a-ha will be playing at the venue on March 9th, Brazilian fan Aloisio reports.
Apparently this will be the opening concert of the Brazilian tour. No ticket info for Barau has been announced yet, but a special pre-sale for the concerts in Rio and Sao Paulo started yesterday on ticketmaster.com.br. This pre-sale is only open for certain credit card holders, while the regular ticket sale is expected to start after December 20th.
And Magne's "Alpha Beta"-series will be shown in Edinburgh, Scotland from January to March 2010. The prints will be on display in the gallery of Edinburgh Printmakers, the same gallery where "Payne's Gray" was exhibited in November 2004. More info here.
(Thanks to Catherine and Aloisio)
Mini-concert in Germany / Keyboard Player Magazine
a-ha were in the German city of Ingolstadt on Saturday to perform at a corporate Christmas party for employees of the home electronics chain Media-Saturn.
The event was held at the Ingolstädter Stadtheater with an audience of 2500 people. Other artists performing incuded No Angels, Peter Maffay and Sunrise Avenue, local news website donaukurier.de reports.
A few short video clips of a-ha performing Foot Of The Mountain and Take On Me at the event can be seen on YouTube.
For some reason no one noticed this until now, but Magne was on the cover of Keyboard Player Magazine's September issue.
Inside there is a 4-page interview where Magne talks about the early days of a-ha and the process of recording Foot Of The Mountain.
When asked about future plans for the band, he reveals what he could have had in mind for that next a-ha album we'll never get to hear:
"If it was purely up to me, we would go even more electronic on the next album, really hardcore electronic. I wanted to do that on this album, and I think 70 per cent succeeded."
The magazine can be ordered from Keyboard Player Magazine's website here (£3.50 + shipping).
A PDF download of the interview is also available for purchase here (£1.95).
And "Nothing Is Keeping You Here" has entered the German singles chart at number 65 in its first week. The whole chart is available at MTV.de.
(Thanks to "Ladybird", Caterina and Johannes)
VG interview / German article / New Brazil date? / Tomine
Today's paper edition of VG has an interview with Magne and fashion designer Nora Farah, who are exhibiting together in Oslo this week.
As I wrote yesterday, Magne and Nora have previously worked together on designing women's dresses (I think it was in 2005).
"Our collaboration started some years ago when I designed women's dresses based on Magne's artworks. That resulted in a fashion show at the concert house [in Oslo]. Now we're testing out something new. You may call it a new take on the world we live in. A small modern expression", Farah tells VG.
Magne doesn't see a problem with exhibiting his art in an interior design store.
"Those who already have a problem with my style will probably snort at this anyway. But what's the problem? Art doesn't always end up in museums, it ends up in a home. And this is a simulated home. Besides, everyone has a place to sit when they're looking at my prints!
I find this to be an exciting way of getting out of the usual gallery setting. I have also done something similar with the famous tailor Timothy Everest in London in 2006, who often makes happenings like this, where I exhibited artworks in a tailor setting", Magne says.
The German lighting and sound magazine Production Partner has a 4-page article about the Foot Of The Mountain Tour in its current issue.
It includes lots of tech porn for those who are interested, including details on the 132 square meter large LED video wall modules produced by ElementLabs and the massive PA system from Meyer Sound.
There is also an extensive interview with a-ha's longtime stage/lighting designer JoJo Tillman, who will also be on tour with the band throughout 2010.
Naddel on the German forum has posted scans of the magazine, which can be seen here.
It appears that in addition to the three Brazilian concerts already announced, a-ha will also be playing in the city of Bauru in March 2010.
The concert will be held at the Alameda Quality Center, but the exact date is not yet known. The news comes from Brazilian fan Aloisio, who has his own a-ha blog here.
Morten's oldest daughter Tomine has been chosen as one of the singers taking part in Melodi Grand Prix (Eurovision Song Contest) in Norway next year. She will be one of 7 artists competing in the second Norwegian semifinal, to be held in Bodø on January 16th.
"I hope people can stop being so judgemental toward me. They're probably thinking that I'll be performing some kind of Hannah Montana-song. But I just want to do things on my own now - and not just be "Morten Harket's daughter", although that's obviously who I am as well. I hope people will come to respect me as an artist in my own right", Tomine tells VG.
The song she'll be performing is called "Be Good To Me" and was written by Peter Ställmark and her stepfather Tommy LaVerdi.
Tomine has been struggling with her voice for a while now, which caused her to cancel the planned leading role in a stage production of "High School Musical" last month. Since then she's been resting her voice and going to a voice teacher, learning new techniques to prevent straining her voice too much.
"Alpha Beta" in Oslo
Following the recent exhibition openings in Asker and Lillehammer, yet another display of Magne's Alpha Beta-prints could be seen in the interior design store Showroom at Vinderen in Oslo yesterday.
Magne's accompanying new vinyl record
Word Symphony, where he has experimented with Morten's vocal tracks from the Foot Of The Mountain sessions, was used as background music.
"You have never heard Morten like this before. I have spliced together completely different vocal takes. It's like an electronic sampler, sometimes backed by rhythmic elements", Magne told the news website Akersposten.no.
"This is abstract art. It's letters or part of words that I want people to create their own associations to. Very different than how you would usually think of a-ha."
In addition to Magne's art, the Norwegian fashion designer Nora Farah presented some of her latest creations at Showroom yesterday. Farah has previously collaborated with Magne to create women's dresses based on his artworks.
BTW, Lillehammer ByAvis has a new article about the December 5th exhibition opening in Lillehammer last weekend.
Deluxe Edition arrives / Interview with Paul
Fans are starting to receive the FOTM Deluxe Edition (CD+DVD), which was released in Germany on December 4th.
Although earlier reports suggested that the DVD would also include a live version of "The Bandstand", only the two live tracks and three music videos originally announced are actually on the disc.
But otherwise it's quite a nice package (apart from a huge DVD rating logo on the front). It comes in a fold-out double digipak cover in a matte finish which includes some new artwork inside. The DVD has an animated menu based on the "Shadowside"-cover, with FOTM playing in the background and some thunder sound effects. And all the clips are presented in anamorphic widescreen in OK quality.
If you haven't already ordered it, the Deluxe Edition is available at Amazon.de.
Gosia in Poland has now posted an English translation of the second part of the interview in Teraz Rock magazine.
In the interview, Paul talks about the inspiration behind several of the songs on the album, including "Real Meaning", "Start The Simulator", "Shadowside" and "The Bandstand".
He also talks about last year's solo concerts in Oslo and London as being a "fantastic experience". The whole English translation can be read on the WOTM Forum.
And while we wait for more South American dates to be announced, Brazilian fan Quissak has created a nice unofficial flyer which can be seen here.
Brazilian dates announced / Japanese dates rescheduled?
The first three dates of the South American tour in March 2010 have now been announced on credicard.com.br. They are:
10 March: Credicard Hall, Sao Paulo, Brazil
13 March: Citibank Hall, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
14 March: Chevrolet Hall, Recife, Brazil
More South American dates are expected to be announced soon.
There is an interview with Magne in the Brazilian newspaper Jornal da Tarde today.
"We will play in Buenos Aires in early March and soon afterwards we will be in Brazil. We're coming to Brazil to celebrate the end of a-ha with our fans. I don't want it to be a sad farewell. We'd like to always be remembered as a band that made great choices. When I'm 75 years old and looking back, playing in Brazil will always be in my memory," Magne says.
Magne has also done telephone interviews with Jornal de Brasilia and Critique this week.
Some time ago a-ha.com wrote that the band would play at the Summer Sonic Festival in Tokyo and Osaka next August. Those plans may now have been cancelled.
According to a Japanese magazine Magne says that they are hoping to come back to Japan in November 2010 instead.
(Thanks to Christian and Mayumi)
New interviews from Brazil, Japan and Poland
Yesterday there was an interview with Paul in the Brazilian newspaper Correio.
(Picture by Wim)
Asked about the influence of Arcade Fire's Neon Bible album on "Riding The Crest", Paul says that he loved Neon Bible, but "Riding The Crest" ended up sounding much softer on the album than he had intended.
He also mentions that "Nothing Is Keeping You Here" was inspired by Nick Drake, which could explain some of the lyrics. Other bands that he's been listening to recently include The Shins, Muse, Death Cab for Cutie, old New Order, The Killers, Kasabian and Eels.
Correio is a newspaper in the Bahia region of Brazil, and Paul says that he hopes a-ha will be back in Bahia and the city of Salvador in 2010.
Here are the last couple of questions:
"Why the decision to end the a-ha career with a world tour, with the last show scheduled for December 4, 2010, in Oslo?
- Twenty-five years is a long time to be in a band and you can only continue if that's what the majority [of members] want.
What are your plans after a-ha has ended?
- I would love to work/write something with other bands and artists. I would also love to start a new band or maybe write something different, some kind of musical perhaps.
This opens up a lot of time for things you never had the opportunity to do. For me, I have to see what kind of songs I'm writing and then just go where they want me to go."
While in Tokyo on November 25th, a-ha were interviewed by the radio station FM Yokohama.
When asked about how fans have reacted to the news about the end of a-ha, Magne said:
(Picture by Wim)
"It's been interesting to read. I was given kind of a statement from Japanese fans when we arrived at the airport, and I read them all. And the general feeling was that this was in a way something really, really sad in their opinion, in their lives. Something they were dreading to happen.
But at the same time, almost all of them said that "we really respect your decision". I think that was quite interesting to read, because it really is that kind of a decision that I think...you know, you make a decision and you decide to do it. And then new things appear. Other things can be allowed to happen. And that's the strength of making your decision. It's not making decisions that make you ruffle around.
So I don't think they should be forced to see it in a particular way or react in a certain way. But I also think they realize that we don't owe them to continue a-ha. We owe it to ourselves to be true to what we believe in, and if we believe that a-ha has served its purpose, that's our call to make.
You know, changing is never easy. But it can sometimes lead to good things. And this point in time for us is a special time in every way. Not to say that we're not gonna think about it and wonder about it - and who knows, maybe miss it. But it is also a time of great celebration. We have a great album. It's been accepted by critics and audience alike. And we have a big tour ahead of us, a chance to celebrate a long career. And that's what we aim to do."
The whole FM Yokohama interview, which was broadcast on December 4th, is now available for listening here. There are also a couple of pictures from the interview here and here.
And a message from Magne to fans in Japan can be seen on the Japanese a-ha fansite.
Back in September there was an interview with Magne and Paul in the Polish magazine Teraz Rock. Polish fan Gosia has now posted an English translation of the first part of the interview on the WOTM Forum.
(Thanks to Patricia, Emerson and Gosia)
Exhibition opening in Lillehammer
An exhibition of Magne's "Alpha Beta"-prints and several large oil paintings opened in Lillehammer today.
The artist himself was present at the opening, although he arrived 3 hours late.
"For me, there's a certain drama connected with Lillehammer", Magne told the local newspaper Gudbrandsdølen Dagningen. Back in June 1996 he was preparing an exhibition in Lillehammer when a fire broke out in the loft of the building. Magne himself ran up and had to use several fire extinguishers to put out the flames, thereby preventing what could have been a major fire disaster in an area of many old, wooden houses.
Today's opening was less dramatic, with many people showing up and art for several hundred thousand being sold.
Magne was in a great mood, signing autographs for the kids and talking to both journalists and audience members, Gudbrandsdølen Dagningen reports.
The same newspaper has a gallery of 10 pictures from the opening here.
Prints from the "Alpha Beta"-series are also currently on display at Galleri Trafo in Asker, as part of the gallery's Christmas exhibition. The exhibition opened on November 28th and will last until December 23rd.
Magne is also represented at a group exhibition at Kunstgalleriet in Stavanger this month.
Another appearance on "Die Ultimative Chartshow"
Following last Friday's performance of "Nothing Is Keeping You Here" on Die Ultimative Chartshow on RTL,
a-ha appeared on the show again last night - this time performing "Foot Of The Mountain".
While last week's show focused on "Most successful comebacks", the theme of this week's show was "Most successful hits of 2009". Both of
a-ha's playback performances were taped in Cologne on October 21st.
"Foot Of The Mountain" from last night can be seen on YouTube.
Kiel concert changes / Some interviews
The concert at Sparkassen Arena in Kiel next year has been moved from Wednesday 2 June to Tuesday 1 June. No reason was given for the rescheduling.
While in Tokyo last week, a-ha were interviewed for the breakfast TV-show "Sukkiri". A clip of the interview is now up on YouTube.
And John Bowe from the Irish radio station LMFM interviewed Magne and Paul before the concert at the O2 Arena in London last month. The interview can now be downloaded from LMFM's website here (bottom of page).
(Thanks to Frauke, Mortyman and Niamh)
