Greetings one and all, I’m here in Oslo, Norway, where the Øyafestivalen 2010 is currently underway.
I’ll do a more in-depth report when everything is over but briefly here are some highlights of Day 1. (Well, technically, the festival started with a series of club gigs the night before, but I was too jet-lagged to attend.)
The “opening ceremony” – a gig by The National at the Opera House. As my colleague The RAT would say – woot!
Not actually part of the festival per se, but held in conjunction with. Who wants to see them in Singapore? Make a big noise. I’m there.
Rain.
Yup, no major festival is complete without rain. Thing is, for Oslo, that makes temperatures drop to the early teens. And since I didn’t wear galoshes, that means cold and wet feet for almost 12 hours.
Norwegian bands. They make up more than 50 per cent of the festival line-up (organisers, are you reading this?) and range from old school pop (Thom Hell), Tori Amos-esque stuff (Ingrid Olava), country-blues (Navigators), indie pop (Kenneth Ishak and the Freedom Machines) and weird psyche rock (Serena Maneesh). And this doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface.
Ingrid Olava
Kenneth Ishak and the Freedom Machines
Navigators
International acts. Can anyone say Iggy And The Stooges, Air or M.I.A.? But one of the best spotted today was America’s Sleepy Sun, described by someone as “stoner rock”.
Iggy
AIR
M.I.A.
Sleepy Sun
Interestingly, if you weren’t interested in watching rock bands, you could BE one.
