Yesterday, on 5th April I posted a tribute to Norwegian band a-ha’s enduring success on the 40th anniversary of the release of their debut single Take On Me in 1985…the song and its award winning video has now achieved iconic status 40 years later with over 2 billion views on YouTube and a similar number of plays on Spotify, making it the the most watched and most listened to song of the 80s…ahead of even Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody.
In January1991 a-ha toured South America and performed at 25 concerts in 5 countries - in four weeks they performed to over 3 million people including almost 200,000 at the Maracana Stadium at Rock In Rio…a record for the largest paying audience at a rock concert, at 198,000 it was a record that stood unmatched for over 3 decades. I’m posting an excerpt from the official video filmed during that 1991 tour by American filmmaker Lauren Savoy who is the wife of Pal Waaktaar, guitarist and principal songwriter for the band. The video was filmed at a variety of different venues but the audio is live and was recorded during only one concert. Take On Me, live in S.America in 1991….and I’ve also sneaked in a video of the actual live performance to 198,000 at the Maracana in Rio too!