Norway’s popular rock band a-ha started an international farewell tour this week but had to cancel Saturday’s concert in Santiago, because of damage after the killer quake that hit Chile last weekend. The band hopes to find a new concert date, after a long swing through Brazil.
“We don’t want to force ourselves on the people there, at a time of catastrophe,” band member Magne Furuholmen told newspaper Aftenposten. “But we also don’t want to disappoint our fans there.”
Furuholmen noted that since it’s a farewell tour, with band members moving on to other things after more than two decades of playing together, “we can’t say that ‘we’ll come back,’ so we want to find a new concert date there. The fans deserve it.”
(PHOTO: A-ha performing at a concert in Buenos Aires at the weekend.
Furuholmen, Paul Waaktaar-Savoy and lead singer Morten Harket launched their tour in Buenos Aires on Thursday, where fans still showed up at the airport and outside the band’s hotel, 25 years after release of a-ha’s huge hit Take on me. All 10,000 tickets to a-ha’s concert in the legendary Luna Park arena sold out.
“This is just great,” Harket said. “The fans here are so calm and polite, it’s a joy.”
Furuholmen said the band started its tour in South America because fans there have “always been incredibly loyal, with a strong relationship to the band.”
A-ha’s tour keeps growing, with 64 concerts now confirmed and more likely to be added, in Russia and Japan. Their final concert will be in Oslo on December 4.
Views and News from Norway/Nina Berglund
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