Øya 2006 (festival)

I remember my first Kalvøya festival when I saw Neil Young live. Jon Erik had tried to make me understand his music before – but of course – young as I was it totally passed me. But then he went on stage and Kalvøya became one of my finest festival memories. Not to mention that Neil came back next summer and made an even better concert.

The Kalvøya festival is now dead – but Øya lives on in its image (!?!) This year Øya actually start to attract some big international attention, but is it with stars like Beck and Twilight Singers bigger than Kalvøya? It would be a subjective answer – but I think the old Kalvøya was bigger – but Øya is on the way and it will be interesting to see how it progresses next year.

It started up on Wednesday with Øya night with some of the smaller band playing in clubs all over town. This is a good opportunity for the lesser known band to get some attraction and if they are good enough start on the road to fame.

First we saw Vom. A band of girls that are extremely interested in food??!! While not very interesting it had some effect that they barbecued food in front of the stage for some of us to eat. Thank you. Afterwards it was a quite good band playing but we had to leave for another concert.

Second we saw Rex Rudi known from the side-cartoon in Nemi. While the lead singer looks rockabilly they claim to play rock. But honestly it doesn’t sound like any of the two – but some kind of undefinable mass of noise. I would advise them to keep to the cartoon – while it might not be top noch it still is better. Highlight of the concert was the solos of guitar, drums and harpsichord. To bad nobody does this anymore. Maybe in some years they will manage to substance-size the music.

Third we saw a two small concerts with bands I unfortunately don’t know the name of, but especially the second band was really good, sounded a little like Led Zeppelin(!!)

Later we went downstairs and saw another band were I don’t know the name. While the band had some slow rock tunes reminding me of Neil Young (!) the lead singer’s voice was awful and it destroyed the whole band. A mission to all bands with lead singers whose voice suck? Find a new lead singer or make the one you have to work on his voice!

In fact it was such a downer that we went home

Thursday I didn’t go – but I saw some of it on Web-cast later. Motorpsycho (probably Norways best band, at least before Captain Gebhart left the wagon) delivered another great concert. The Cumshots famous from Quart opened up – but the music is not as good as the show I would say. Morrissey played but I don’t think it was more than par.

Friday came and again it was time to party! Black Debbath played a tribute to Ibsen – in their own pyro way – with the best being Motorhedda Gabler!

And I did get to see Twilight Singers – this was definitely the best part of the festival – too bad they didnt play longer than an hour and fifteen minutes (that’s a shame) – it was just about as good as seeing The Afghan Wigs a long time ago. I really would like to see a full length concert with them – anytime soon!

The Fall was strange – but totally ok, but not a band I will put any money in I think.

Then big star of the night was of course Dum Dum Boys! They delivered a great show – again only 1 hour and 15 minutes so to short to top the concert earlier this year in Rockefeller – but I feel that Dum Dum is getting in shape!!!

Saturday came. I didn’t manage to get there in time to Knutsen and Ludvigsen. Too bad. But I was in place a little later for KILL. A wild show but not much in it for me.

Hurra Torpedo is back in Norway after the imaginary USA tour. Seems like they have learned a few tricks on that tour, because they played Pixies ”Where is my mind” with the Devils voice(!!!) and for the rest – it was an awesome show. You just have to love a band that plays on kitchenware.

The Whitest boy alive proves that even if you are nerd you can make pretty good music. Not exepcional but quite enjoyable.

When Yoko Ono did her show, we had gotten admission to the VIP area. Not a really good VIP area though as most stars hid out in the backstage areas – probably to avoid Trond Giske. We did however see Kjartan and Co. And I had my new Dum Dum Boys T-shirt on (designed by myself) – we (and everybody else – all over the world) used the Onochord to flash the message out to the poeple: ”Lika du løøøøøv? Lika du sjokolade?” It is impressive to see such an old lady performing so lively on stage! It is still hope for The Rolling stones for another 5 albums – hah!

Finally Beck entered the scene with ”Looooooser” followed by ”Devils Haircut”. His new puppet show – showing everything happening on stage live on an alternate puppet show was pretty cool. But after a while all his tunes became of the lesser good ones and the puppet effect did also cool off – so I went home.