Popular Danish band plans biggest China tour

Danish band Michael Learns to Rock will return to tour in China this year. [Photo by Zou Hong/China Daily]

For Chinese pop singers, it's quite common to cover Western pop songs in the original versions or in Chinese versions to seek international attention.

However, for Danish pop rock band Michael Learns to Rock, its biggest break in Asia came when the group adapted a Chinese song of Cantonese pop star Jacky Cheung, Goodbye Kiss, into an English track, Take Me to Your Heart, in 2003.

"When the song (Goodbye Kiss) was presented to us, we immediately fell in love with it. It was the first time ever for us to record a song not written by ourselves, so it was a big step for us to try this," drummer Kare Wanscher says. "Originally it was only meant to be released in China but we were so happy with the song that it also made it to the international version of the album. We had no idea about the success this song would get and it was an amazing experience to see that we had reached out to so many Chinese people and that they all knew our music."

Since its first live show in China－at Beijing's Workers Stadium in 1997 in front of over 8,000 fans, the trio has been to China around 20 times. They were back most recently in China in 2016, when they staged shows in Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen.

Now, however, the Scandinavia-based band will launch their first large-scale tour in China by performing in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Hong Kong and Chengdu. The dates are not all finalized but the period will be end of August 2017.

Titled Michael Learns to Rock 2017 Eternal China Tour, the band－also known as MLTR－will play songs from its new albums and songs that are popular in Asia, such as Take Me to Your Heart, Someday, Paint My Love and 25 Minutes.

With eight studio albums released and global record sales of 11 million physical albums, more than 6 million paid downloads, the band released a new EP in 2016, which features four singles, Dream Girl, Crushing Blue, I'll Wait for You and We Shared the Night.

Dream Girl, according to singer-songwriter and keyboard player Jascha Richter, is very special. The band had the song for quite some time but could not find the right time to release it.