Another weekend trip to Norway, including two Skambankt concerts, yeah! And this time, it was actually a lot more than “only” concerts, but a lot of sightseeing, sitting in the sun and… driving. Argh.
OK, having a car in Norway is great, you actually get to where you want to go, and a lot easier than with public transport. But well, I kept wondering why Norwegian cars even have a fifth gear, I HATE roundabouts (especially 2-lane roundabouts, and even more especially roundabouts where you can’t tell if it’s 1 or 2 lanes…), and you probably have to be Norwegian to not mind throwing your money out of the window all the time. Literally. (But okay, it’s better than spending an hour in Tønsberg checking about all gas stations there to find a way to pay the f*%$ing toll…)
Anyway. I made it into Oslo without problems, picked up Linda, and we went on our way discovering Østfold. First stop: Moss. (Hey, stop laughing! It looked interesting on the map. How should we know that it stinks and that the people in the tourist information – yes, tourist information! And it was actually OPEN! In April! – were all in a meeting just at the time we came by.) Next stop was a beach in the middle of nowhere. Really nice, just sitting there in the sunshine, enjoying the quiet, and trying to come up with the Norwegian word for shell (which doesn’t occur in any Skambankt or Kaizers song, so… how should I know?). After that we went on to Sarpsborg, got us a place to stay and something to eat and wondered about the Norwegian words for mushrooms and annoying. It is a bit weird if your vocabulary consists only of words that occur in songs… =;-)
Finally we went on to Fredrikstad. Still long before the concert was supposed to start, but there was a lot to see in Fredrikstad, so there was no problem passing the time. And just before the concert, we had to walk back to the car, ’cause we had spend the last hour trying to remember the lyrics of a song, first looking for one word and then realizing that we actually were missing a complete line of the chorus. So, if you walked by a car with Di Grind on full volume and two giggly girls inside… uhem. Sorry. *g*
OK, so finally time for the concert. I gotta admit though that this time, the concerts were only one small part of the weekend, and also, I was damn tired (because of the shitty Ryanair timetables, of course), so I don’t really have that much to report about the concerts. But I’ll do my best.
First up was Powersolo, a Danish band that was fairly weird. The most irritating thing was that the singer/guitar player could have won any Geir Zahl-look-alike contest. Or rather move-alike, as he didn’t look like him at all – but you only notice how many ways there are to move on stage or hold a guitar if two people do it _exactly_ the same way. That was creepy.
Anyway, everybody was kinda bored by them, I think. Not that “everybody” would have been a lot of people – there was hardly anybody there. It didn’t seem that empty anymore when Skambankt came on, but when I looked around once, I was in the last row. And at the same time in the second… (OK, but very to the side, after all it wasn’t THAT bad. *gg*)
Well, finally Powersolo where done (after a last song where the singer went down into the audience, bumped into people and got everybody to sit down in the end – which made Mr. Winters point out in the middle of the Skambankt concert that now would probably be the right time to make everybody sit down – “but we don’t give a shit about that…”). The intro started, Skambankt came on, and the crowd – consisting mainly of russ – went crazy. OK, only in the front of course, there wasn’t really a back, which was a pity.
As I wrote above, I can’t really report a lot about the concert. It was a lot of fun! Lots of energy on stage, and maybe a little less interaction with the audience than at other concerts. But nothing was missing – we had to count up, a guy was ordered up on stage to count in during Alarm, we had to clap along (and didn’t find the beat at the beginning of Alarm – which wasn’t much of a surprise, as it’s just not possible to get this right with a crowd). Ted asked who had the first album and who didn’t – and who didn’t know. Guess you’ll have to count me to the last group, as he was already at the “who does not” when I finally got the question. Norwegian + tired -> slow. But well. =;-) Of course there was also a lot of praise for the new concert hall. And some missing lines in the lyrics. =;-) (By the way, I have no clue about the lyrics. I can only sing along, or come up with single words. *gg*)
Here’s the setlist: Nok et offer, Me sa nei, Stormkast #1, Skambankt, Desertør, Dynasti, Revolusjonens aggregat, Alarm, Tyster, Min eliksir, Fritt fall, Skamania. Encore KKK and Panzersjokk – even though the setlist had Ordets gud as encore… *grr*
Of course the concert was much too short, and I was actually busy with my cool new camera during some of the songs, but it was really great. What was a bit annoying was driving back to Sarpsborg afterwards, and especially trying to find the right street there… but we made it, and got an incredible 5 hours of sleep…