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.

February 22nd 2003 - Madrugada have been nominated for "Best Rock" in the Norwegian equivalent of the Grammys, Spellemannsprisen. The award show will be aired live on Norwegian television channel TV2 tonight. "Absolutt Spellemann," an introduction to the actual award show, airs at 20:00. The actual show starts at 20:20, live from Oseberg Kulturhus in Tønsberg, Norway. There will be a break for news and sports at 21:00, then the award show is on again at 21:35 and continues until 22:40. Straight afterwards there will be another "Absolutt Spellemann" special, thirty minutes live from the aftershow with artist interviews.

In addition that Madrugada may win an award, there is a chance that members of the band will be presenting an award, as Norwegian artists will serve as hosts of the show and presenters of awards this year. Madrugada were also nominated for an Alarm award last weekend, but lost to JR Ewing's "Ride Paranoia."

Later tonight Madrugada play a long-awaited sold-out show at Rockefeller in Oslo. The fabulous Serena Maneesh, who shared the bill with Madrugada at the Øyafestivalen kick-off in Oslo last August, will be support act for the concert in Oslo. Eivind Schou, who played violin on "Grit," plays violin in Serena Maneesh, so it might be that he also joins Madrugada on stage for a couple of songs like he has done in the past.

February 13th 2003 - A long overdue update. The Concert Chronology now has the complete schedule for the Norwegian and European tours in February, March and April, in addition to some setlists from the concerts that have already taken place. Thanks to Fred Arve Fahre, Torstein Frogner, Laurent, Myriam Mimtchioui, Tonny Engelmann, ArtPro and madrugada.net.

Apparently all concerts in the first week of the Norwegian tour sold out. Rockefeller in Oslo on February 22nd has been sold out for some time already. The fabulous Norwegian band Serena Maneesh will open for Madrugada at Rockefeller, and apparently also at some other dates on the Norwegian tour.

The fabulous "Majesty" finally seems set for commercial release, after having been A-listed on Norwegian radio for several months, one week in January it was even the second most played song on all of Norwegian radio. March 3rd seems to be the scheduled release date for a Madrugada EP featuring "Majesty" as the title track, the b-sides for the EP are still unknown.

On the official Madrugada page, madrugada.net there are now forty-four pictures from the recording sessions for "Grit" in Berlin available. Click here to see them. It does not say who took the pictures, but there are some notes below some of them. One of the most interesting pictures show a sheet featuring working song titles, titles for songs that were not included on "Grit," and titles that were considered for the album.

Alternate titles for the album included: "Madrugada," "Love's Institution," "Snowball," "I'm Not Afraid To Love Anymore," "Grand Theft Audio," "Right Now," "The Kreutzberg Protocol," "Which Side Are You On?", "Mr. Hyde," "Leopard," "Taliban Walker" and "Was Ist Loos Pussycat." Looking at the last suggestion, it should be fair to assume that not all of these titles were meant as too serious contenders for final album title.

One of the song titles listed on the sheet is "Right Now," which Frode told me in Stavanger last Friday was his favorite Madrugada song, but that it was just not working out the way they wanted when recording it. Pictures from that oncert will be made available on this page as soon as they have been developed and scanned.

"Grit" is doing very well in the official Norwegian album charts, four months after its debut on the charts. In week twelve on the charts it was on tenth place, the week after it was on thirteenth place, then up to an eight place the week after, and up another spot to the seventh place in its fifteenth week on the charts. The album has sold about 35.000 copies in Norway, and about 100.000 copies in total in all of Europe.

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.