SINGAPORE – Life is good for British-Norwegian boy band A1 these days.
The quartet are celebrating their 25th anniversary with a global tour that includes a stop in Singapore at The Theatre at Mediacorp on Saturday, and they are having a ball of a time, says member Mark Read in a Zoom interview.
“Back in the day, there would be the pressure of having another No. 1 and having another album,” he recalls of the band’s heyday, when they scored chart-topping hits such as Take On Me (2000), Same Old Brand New You (2000) and Caught In The Middle (2002).
“Now, it’s more about enjoying the time together, rather than the pressure of ‘Oh, we need to deliver this, we need to deliver that’. Now, it’s a case of let’s just make sure we can put up the best show for our fans and enjoy it and give everyone a good time.”
Read says the relationship between the members – who include fellow Brits Ben Adams and Paul Marazzi as well as Christian Ingebrigtsen from Norway – has never been better.
The 44-year-old singer adds: “We know each other so well that we know when to give one another space. We can read all the signs, we can read when somebody’s maybe having a bad day.”
Formed in 1998, A1 found early success with debut single Be The First To Believe, which reached No. 6 on the British singles chart the following year.
Most of the singles they released between 1999 and 2002 were Top 10 hits on the British charts, with two – Same Old Brand New You and their rendition of Norwegian pop group A-ha’s classic hit Take On Me – reaching No. 1.
A1 also released three albums – Here We Come (1999), The A List (2000) and Make It Good (2002).
In late 2002, Marazzi left the group and the rest decided to split up, announcing that they wanted to work on solo careers.
Read focused on songwriting and ended up working with a long list of pop artistes such as Irish singer Ronan Keating and British singer Rick Astley.
The trio of Read, Adams and Ingebrigtsen reformed in 2009 and released two more albums – Waiting For Daylight (2010) and Rediscovered (2012). They also played concerts worldwide, including shows in Singapore in 2012, 2016 and 2018. Marazzi rejoined the group in 2018.
Read says he is grateful that A1 can still tour and sing for their fans 25 years after they started out.
“We are all very young at heart, music really does keep us young,” he adds. “We can still present a very similar kind of fresh, energetic show that we did 20 years ago.”
He acknowledges that fan interactions have changed a lot today too, compared with in the late 1990s. Today, fans can interact directly with their idols on social media, whereas pop stars from an earlier era, like Michael Jackson, had an aura of mystery around them, Read muses.
If you wanted to connect with a pop star back then, you would have to camp out outside a television station or radio station. Nowadays, he says, all a fan needs to do is drop a message on Instagram.
“On one hand, I missed the mystique, the mystery of it,” he says of the pre-social media days.
“On the other hand, I love the accessibility and the acknowledgement that you immediately give back to the fans.”
Book It / A1 Twenty Five Live in Singapore
Where: The Theatre at Mediacorp, 1 Stars Avenue
When: Saturday, 8pm
Admission: From $118 via Sistic (www.sistic.com.sg or call 6348-5555)
