Chance to Take On A-ha once again; Eighties Norwegian heart-throbs are back and playing in Brum.

Byline: Alison Dayani

THERE may be the same high pitch vocals, the cheekbones so sharp they could cut glass, and the clipped Norwegian accents, but I feel like my mind is playing tricks on me as A-ha chat about their forthcoming gig in Birmingham.

Hold on. We are in 2009 aren't we? It's like wandering into an episode of Ashes to Ashes, back to the 1980s glory of shoulder pads, big hair and heart-throb Morten Harket running around in a cartoon pleading Take On Me.

But this is the little more weathered, distinguished Morten, Magne Furuholmen and Paul Waaktaar-Savoy, back to send the teenage girls of the past, now women in their 30s and 40s, swooning once more.

So, is there anything they want to do differently this time around or will we be seeing the threesome in another lovely animation video anytime soon? "You have to remember, videos were on the rise back when we did Take On Me," says Morten, still svelte and youthful despite his 49 years.

"Music is what we do, though, and any medium of communicating that with people.

"Strangely enough, we have never played in India or China, so we'd love to do that now."

"And in the early days," Paul jumps in. "We only spent one to two months touring America and never went back."

"We had a large spell in 1985-86 but we would have had to move to the States and be available all the time, so we chose to remain a European act," says Morten.

A-ha first burst on to the music scene with Take On Me in 1985, moving on to countless MTV awards, a coveted James Bond theme (The Living Daylights) and numerous chart hits including Sun Always Shines On TV, Cry Wolf and Stay On These Roads.

They now have eight children between them (Morten with five of those by three women), "We stay away for enough time that every new album is a comeback," chuckles Paul. "That's the rule.

"It's getting hard to predict what sort of crowd we will be playing to. There is a wide selection of people."

That's certainly true of some of their latest gigs, including the itunes festival where the new album Fool Of The Mountain went down well along with the older hits.

TicketInfo A-HA November 2: NIA Tickets: 0844 338 8000.

CAPTION(S):

Back again: A-ha stars Magne Furuholmen, Morten Harket and Paul Waaktar-Savoy.