Tag: a-ha

One month…

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This time next month, I’ll be boarding a large jet-engined aircraft – vuvuzela in hand – for my trip to Europe on The Last Hurrah 2010 tour. It therefore seems fitting that we should indulge ourselves with a little more a-ha goodness. This one is from their 1990 album East of the Sun, West of the Moon and it’s called I Call Your Name.

A great song that made it to number 45 in the French singles chart. Because they have no taste.

I should be at Grand West watching Crowded House tonight, but I’m not feeling great and the kids are still recovering from ear and sinus infections respectively, so I’ve stayed home to look after them. And me.
In an ironic twist of fate, Mrs 6000 took the babysitter along to the concert.

Nothing, however, will stop me from making an appearance at the Oslo Spektrum in a few weeks time. I could be oozing blood from every orifice (very African) and I’d still be there singing along.
It would be nice to just be healthy that night, though.

Don’t throw your lifelines away

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There aren’t many pop videos which begin with a poem written by a king.
In fact, if you can name any at all, I’ll be impressed. And that’s going to leave you high and dry when that “name a pop video which begins with a poem written by a king” question comes up at the next pub quiz you go to.

Instead then – tell them about this video: Lifelines by a-ha, which is prefaced by a poem written in 1977 by King Olav V of Norway :

When I look back
I see the landscapes
That I have walked through
But it is different

All the great trees are gone
It seems there are
Remnants of them

But it is the afterglow
Inside of you

Of all those you met
Who meant something in your life

And then the video, based on the Norwegian short film A Year Along the Abandoned Road and filmed in the abandoned Norwegian fishing village of Børfjord.

…and presented to you this evening not just to assist with future pub quizzing, but also to mark two months before a-ha’s last ever gig in the UK, which will take place on November 27th at Wembley Arena: one of the venues where I saw them perform on their Lifelines tour (on 12th October 2002).
The 27th November 2010 is, incidentally, also the date that I land in the UK for The Last Hurrah tour.

It all seems to fit.

100

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One hundred days from now, I will be enjoying a concert at the Oslo Spektrum in… Oslo, that being the major reason behind The Last Hurrah Tour. Thus, at such a milestone, it seems appropriate to enjoy a little more a-ha and what could be better than their only UK number 1, The Sun Always Shines On TV (which, of course, is actually untrue)?

Released in November 1985 – yes, that’s 25 years ago – this single sold over 4.5 million copies worldwide, of which I was personally responsible for 0.000022%.  And, in further personal a-ha trivia, I own (as in on CD/vinyl) no fewer than 4 separate cover versions of this song, including one* by the utterly, utterly pisspoor female Europop dance duo Diva, who thankfully remain the perfect example of a no-hit wonder.

* which I have just found here.

The Last Hurrah

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With the World Cup over (feel eet, eet is gone), it’s time to move on to other things and I need a project to keep myself occupied now that there isn’t live football available 24/7 (at least, until the new football seasons start in a couple of weeks).

So I’m turning my attention to my little end of year jaunt to the Northern Hemisphere and I have decided that this one will be entitled The Last Hurrah: after a-ha’s final single and in keeping with the bittersweet purpose of the trip. There will be tears.
Given that there will be just 180 hours between my outbound flight touching down at T5 and my inbound flight leaving the same – and with approximately a million people to see in the UK plus 3 blokes in Norway – this will be no holiday and organisation will be key.

There are some obvious items that are set in stone and flights and hotels need to be booked for those (cough, Big Ant, cough), but the rest is all just in my head. The only issue is that in there, it finds itself competing for space with thoughts of lobsters, christmas trees and external hard drives (don’t ask) and thus requires documenting here in some sketchy form or other.

Cape Town | Sheffield | (Newcastle) | Sheffield | Gloucester | Oslo | London | Cape Town

Obviously, these are just the bare bones. You can’t fly directly from Cape Town to Sheffield (nor from Gloucester to Oslo) and there will be no overnight stop in Newcastle – but it will be visited.

The emphasis (indicated above by the use of italics) in the case of Newcastle is important because it will be my first trip back there since leaving University back in 1995. I’ve often promised myself that I would get back up to The Toon, but either money, time or (now) distance has prevented it. On this trip, I’m determined to make a day of it up there – if only to see what remains of my old haunts.
Sadly, as far as they go, I suspect there won’t be much left to see: 15 years is a long time when you’re considering cities in Northern England and the throes of rejuvenation.
I hope that green bridge is still there.

So anyway – there they are – the best laid plans of me.
And surely the only things that can ruin them are a BA strike or an errant Icelandic volcano.

Foot of the Mountain

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Those of you who follow me on twitter will already have heard about my run in with an allegedly incompetent doctor at a local A&E department last night. While I am feeling much better this morning than I was yesterday evening, I’m not anywhere near 100% just yet, so I’m lying in bed, watching football and listening to my iPod.
And when I heard Morten Harket’s dulcet tones, I was reminded that there are only 249 days until I see a-ha live in Oslo.

This one, complete with a million blobs of multi-coloured – and, it later emerges, magnetic – ink, is the title track from a-ha’s ninth, latest and last studio album, in which Morten describes his ideal escape from busy city life to his ideal rural retreat with his ideal partner.

Right now, it doesn’t sound like a bad idea.