This festival has a 31 year history and I know many bands that have played there so it was such a honour to play the festival with Black Moon Circle. I came in early on Friday (only cheap flight I could get from Portugal) and was greeted at the airport by the lovely Karen. I had no idea it would be a 2.5hr drive to get to the festival from the airport. Wow. We talked about bands we know and lots of stories, etc.. Lovely lady.
Anyway, I arrived that festival and it is super organised and great people. Get your wristband, food and drink tokens. They have a great backstage for the artists to hang out in and there is food, fruit, snacks, the entire festival and basically free drinks. Awesome. BMC were not arriving until like 22 so I just hung out with old friends, spoke to fans, signed some records, etc… Perfect weather, a bit of clouds and 26C.. awesome.
Lazar (DE) were the first band on the main stage and delivered a set of stoner rock grooves, a few doom riffs and some dream post rock flavours at times. Not a very original sound but they do it very well and had a decent audience for so early in the day.
Scott Hepple and the Sun Band (UK). I had seen this name around on some festivals this summer and they had a great energy and super cool visual projections by Dave and his crew of 3 doing all the visuals on the main stage. They were awesome. Wow.. Impressive.. Anyway, Scott´s band is a trio at the moment (I thought they were a four piece) and delivered a high energy rock and roll show with some great songs influenced by garage rock, 60s rock and classic rock. I missed a lead guitar play though. Scott did some solos though. They were clearly having fun and the audience for sure were into it.
Icarus Burns (DE) was another instrumental band and the first on the smaller stage in the forest. It is fenced in so only about 500 people can cram into the area. These guys were very powerful but I was annoyed that drums and bass were just too loud and while they had a great energy, the music did not really catch me. The audience were into it though. They have a great PA and real pro sound folks but if you are in the front, the bass is very powerful, too much for me..
Kombynat Robotron (DE), old friends now, have really changed their look and style and it was the first time to see them since we played together. All I can say is fucking hell, they were so intense, like a psychedelic steamroller, that just pulverised everything thing in its path. There is this strange way they improvise with the freakouts, but the energy level and intensity was impressive. They also had song/jam that was just bass and drums and the guitar player ran around shouting and doing crazy vocals. Crowd loved it. NOISE ROCK.
Wedge (DE) were a band I have crossed paths with many times over the years but I have not seen them in like 10! They totally rocked with a great 70s rock vibe, some great guitar solos and organ as well on those 3 tracks or so they had the organ. (the bass player played the organ). I really dug them and so far they were my fave band of the day. Great stuff.
Set List: Intro, Nuthin, Role, Easy, Friday, Computer, Constellation, Wrong, Lucid
1000 Mods (GR), seem to be everywhere these days. I guess these guys are probably one of the most constant bands in the stoner scene delivering a classic 90-2000 era stoner sound and they do it fucking well. A lot of the same style riffs (sort of like what Slomosa are doing but they are too melodic for me and have almost no guitar solos). They rocked and the crowd liked them. I would love to see them try to diversify a bit more. Nice guys as well. Lights were too bright for these guys so I actually move away as you could not watch them with out getting a headache..
The BMC guys were here and it was great to finally meet the new drummer, Alessandro! Guys were in a good mood and ready to rock tomorrow.
Skyjoggers (FI) from Finland, are a crazy trio. I had fun talking to them backstage. I had never seen them so I had no idea what to expect. The drummer and bass player provide this intensity and the guitar player has a lot of pedals and effects and uses them in really cool ways and plays riffs, spaced out delay guitars and just goes wild. It was fucking great. I was pretty blown away and would have loved to had made some space sounds with these guys. Brilliant.
I was super tired as I have been up since 530 in the morning to catch an early flight so I wanted to go back to the place we say. Vemund and I got a ride back while the others stayed til the end. I should also say the lovely folks that play in Sula Bassana, were going super cool lights at the small stage. Awesome....
Dead Meadow (US) I had seen at Sonic Blast in the last year or two, so i knew what to expect. They were just starting to space out when we left. Alessandro said they were a bit boring and felt the drummer was too lazy and they lacked energy.
Day 2
We got a ride back to the festival about 1330 so we were able to catch about 20mins of Sons of Arrakis (Can). I had never heard of this band but damn, they were really good. A bit of groove rock, a bit of metal (one song reminded me of Iron Maiden), and cool guitar solos. I liked it.
Tommy & the Teleboys (DE), were very nerdy looking guys but what a set. IT started slow and I thought they were a bit boring but wow, what a build they had as the just kept lifting the intensity until they had the audience in the palm of their hand! Pretty impressive in the end..
We now had to set up and soundcheck while out friends in Kanaan & Æverstaden (NO) were preparing to play with the folk band on the main stage. I managed to hear some of the soundcheck and take a few pics. We could hear some of their set but did not really see it as we were on just after them. Sounded really great and interesting though. Very different from Kanaan. Hung out a lot with those guys.
Black Moon Circle (NO) It was a great time playing with the guys. I did a couple of minute intro on my new modular box and then the guys came on the stage and went into Snake Oil! Audience was totally into it and great to be on the stage with the guys again. Audience loved the little bit of War Pigs at the end of Snake Oil. We played very well. Øyvin smoked too many cigs the night before and so his voice was not as good as it could have been. The audience dug it. We had a bit of jamming Enigmatic and Psychedelic Spacelord. People loved it. Great response..
Set List: Snake Oil, Spirit World, Enigmatic Superbandit, The Ghost, Serpent, Psychedelic SpaceLord.
Upapayãma (IT) was next on the main stage. I helped in the merch as I could take down my stuff fast and we sold most of the vinyls and t-shirts so that was great. I could hear this band from Italy though and it was very interesting. Guitar (who also played Sitar on 2 tracks), flute, guitar/vocals/synth, percussionist, drummer, bass. A sort of world music psych rock. They had a lot of different styles explored in the music.
Set List: Sound Mirrors, Fliiim/Laliimph, Moon needs the Owl, Mistic Chords, Fil Dagi, White Oak, Noriko, Mas
A/lpaca (IT) were pretty incredible, what an energy. I was tired so did not see that much of them but I heard them. It is a very intense four piece band. Kraut, punk, psych… wild and intense.
Meatbodies (US) played Dinosaur Jr, Nirvana, grunge type sound. I liked the more slow track, Psilocybin. Audience was not that big those that were there dug it. No one had sounded like these guys at the festival.
Weite (DE), a sort of Elder side project, who has released two records were really cool instrumental music. They started with some synth drone stuff. Nick (who plays drums and synth pad) in the band and the keyboard player (who is in Elder now) lead the way as the guitars and other instruments slowly came in. They have a cool sound. A bit like Motorpsycho era (2016-2023) mixed with proggy sort of stuff. The guitars play like southern rock or the grateful dead in a way but I was not very improvised if at all. Very scripted in perfect in some way. I really wish the guitar players had done more solos, instead of sort each playing the same style of melodic stuff for long periods in sections. Anyway, they were great and one of the highlights of the day for sure. Very good band.
This will Destroy You (US) are a real post rock band. I can best describe them as a more melodic, less depressing, less heavy version of Neurosis! It was not my thing at all and I think they also had all these very bright white lights which really annoyed me and did not seem right for that band.
Green Milk from the Planet Orange (JP) are insane. I do not know how else to describe this trio. Everything was intense. One of the most intense drummers of the festival, intense bass playing, intense wild vocals and just strange chords, like proggy riffs and chords but super wild and yet they play sitting down!! It was something else. Just blew everyone away. I saw the drummer exit the stage I was watched most of the show from the backstage side where you could look across and see the band. Anyway, he was just dripping wet…. steam coming off his body as it was cooled off quite a bit. WOW:.
Fu Manchu (US) always deliver the goods and they only had a 60min set to close out the festival. The BMC guys had never seen them and were getting pretty drunk by now. We all hung out and saw the entire show so of it the Kanaan guys were with us as well. That was fun. Pretty much the same set they have played since forever. Mongoose, Reagle Beagle, Californina Crossing, Hell on Wheels, etc…. they closed with a great version of Saturn 3.. I spoke a bit with Bob before the show. Super nice guy.
Just incredible and diverse festival. Very well thought out line up of bands. So nice to meet up with Anders (Liquid ORbit), Elder guys (including Jack), Kanaan guys. Huge thanks to the amazing team at the festival (Birgit, Klaus, Uli, Rene, Karen and many more).. Highly recommend this festival as an artist but also as a music fan. Awesome…
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