News: What is happening in the world of Madrugada and on this page? I try to stay as updated as possible, and I will try to bring you the latest rumours and facts concerning Madrugada. Of course, you will also be able to read all the interesting stuff about what has been updated or changed on this very webpage.

August 24th 2002 - Some concert dates have been confirmed for Madrugada's European tour this Autumn, "GRIT - Tour 2002." Check out the bottom of The Concert Chronology for a list of the ten concerts that have been confirmed so far. Thanks a lot to Franziska Ress and Vincent Hekkert, plus Mohawk and Schumi3 from the Madrugada Discussion Forum for the information.

August 13th 2002 - Madrugada's third album is scheduled for release on October 14th. It will be entitled "The Grit" and it will almost definitely include the eight songs "I'm Ready," "Movin' Up," "Proxy," "7 Seconds," "Bloodshot Adult Commitment," "Come Back Billy Pilgrim," "Try" and "Song Of Majesty," plus some additional songs of course. The first single from the album is scheduled to be "I'm Ready," expected release date is unknown.

The album was recorded at Tritonus in Berlin, Germany. About twenty songs were recorded. It was produced by Frode and a person going by the name Head. Eivind Schou, who has collaborated with St. Thomas and Serena Maneesh, plays violin on "Proxy" and "Bloodshot Adult Commitment." Madrugada's light engineer, Neil Solheim, also known as Neil McNasty, has done some loops and programming which will be featured in the songs, like on the Lee Hazlewood cover "Come On Home To Me." The album is being mastered this week.

Last Wednesday Madrugada did their first proper concert in Norway this year, at Betong in Oslo, Norway as part of the kick-off for Øyafestivalen 2002. The performance was awesome, and the band played four songs from the new album, plus a totally new song called "I Feel Hard" which has evolved from the jams they used to do after "Two Black Bones." Check out The Concert Chronology for full setlist. Frode wore a shirt that had the picture from "The Nightly Disease" on his right shoulder, "Evil Is Going On" on the left of his chest, and "Madrugada" on his left arm. Pictures that I took at the concert will be available soon.

On Sunday the band played at a small club in Oslo called Mono. The concert was for 178 invited people only, and is without a doubt the greatest Madrugada concert I have ever been to. The band was in great shape, the venue was small and intimate, and the audience was unusually nice and well-behaved for a rock concert in Norway. Madrugada played seventeen songs, including seven songs from the new album and the new "I Feel Hard." There were some glitches in the performance, including "Hands Up - I Love You" being played without guitar due to one of Robert's cables malfunctioning, but these were covered up by a band being in a great mood and communicating well with the audience. Pictures from this concert will be available soon.

Before the concert I talked to new drummer Simen Vangen. In addition to being a very good drummer, he is also one of the nicest people I have met. He is an old friend of the people from the band, and grew up at Sortland where Sivert is also from. He joined the band in January, right after the band had recorded the Lee Hazlewood tribute "Come On Home To Me." His first work with the band was adding some drums to the end of that track. Most of the new songs have been written and worked on after Simen joined the band. He said he really likes their old material, but that he is glad to see the band widening their repertoire with some punkier material. He has mainly focused on the new stuff the band has worked on, and before the band's first concert with Simen at Knaack Klub in Berlin, Germany on June 19th, they practiced for three days for him to learn the old stuff. This turned out to be more than enough.

Thanks to Frode, Robert, Simen and Sivert for the above information. Also thanks to Carsten Jøssund, Ane Høyem and Eivind Schou.

Those with access to the German television channel Bayerisches Fernsehen should get their video recorders up and running. The program Rocknacht will feature Madrugada from Taubertal Open Air at Rothenburg ob der Tauber, Germany on July 20th. The program is scheduled to be on front 00:05 until 06:00 onn Wednesday August 14th. This means it will air at night between Wednesday and Thursday, as far as I have understood. The Madrugada parts are scheduled to be on between 03:00 and 03:15, but this can be changed. More information about the festival and the program schedule can be found here.

Older News: Most of the older news pages are also being stored and are available from this page. These news pages are no longer updated, so some of the links might be outdated.