Arvikafestivalen 2004

For one long weekend every summer, The forests of Värmland become home to Sweden’s strangest temporary city. Thousands of people living on cheap beer, questionable hygiene and an unwavering belief that black clothes are appropriate in the summer.

Arvikafestivalen has always attract a large crowd, but this year was something special. The main attraction happened to be four old men from Germany, the legendary Kraftwerk. They are certainly not rock stars. More like professors of the future who accidentally wandered onto a festival stage.

After three days of distortion, screaming guitars and crowds throwing themselves at every riff they recognized, Kraftwerk was almost unnerving. The audience simply stopped. Thousands of people stood perfectly still, absorbing every synthetic pulse as Florian Schneider, knitted hat firmly in place, and company delivered Radioactivity, Man Machine and their catalogue of electronic blueprints with surgical precision. It felt less like watching a concert than attending a demonstration of how the modern world was assembled.

Kraftwerk. There was radioactivity in the air for you and me.

The festival had granted free admission to everyone older than 50 years, which probably was well suited for Kraftwerk fans in particular. It was their first Swedish tour since 1991, and the organizers had paid around three million kronor to bring them here, the biggest booking in the festival’s history. Considering they sold barely 11 500 tickets, it probably wasn’t the wisest financial decision. Then again, accountants rarely change music history. There were 17 000 heads in the audience, which will speak about this evening forever.

Sun and mud at the camping area.

The rest of the weekend was considerably less civilized. Skinny Puppy turned the opening night into industrial theatre. Nivek Ogre appeared dressed in a ragged bird-beak costume, looking like the malevolent cousin of the bird woman from Depeche Mode’s Walking in My Shoes. They opened with I’mmortal before diving into classics from VIVI Sect VI, Rabies and The Process. Equal parts horror film and performance art, just the way we like it.

Over in the Andromeda tent, Douglas McCarthy returned to Swedish soil with his new project Fixmer/McCarthy. The place was packed with EBM veterans waiting for Nitzer Ebb songs, and the duo actually opened with Join in the Chant. Things took a weird turn as two people jumped onto the stage and stripped naked, apparently taking “body music” far too literally.

Johan Kinde and Julian Brandt, Lustans Lakejer.

Lustans Lakejer looked elegant as always, but some bands belong under disco lights at two in the morning, not beneath a merciless afternoon sun. Their music deserves darkness and flair. Eddie Bengtsson tried his new project This Fish Needs a Bike for a lukewarm audience. Iris did their first gig in Sweden, somewhat crippled as the singer broke his leg along the way to the festival.

Somewhere between Wolfsheim, Broder Daniel, Meshuggah, Sara Noxx, Weeping Willows, My Dying Bride, Auf der Maur and a dozen other bands, the festival blurred into that familiar rhythm only festivals can create. You stop caring what time it is. Meals become optional. Sleep becomes a rumor.

Eventually everyone ends up back at the camping, smelling exactly as you’d expect after three days of rain, dirt and bad decisions. All standing in line for something called moose kebab, which sounds like a joke until someone hands you one. Against all odds, it’s exactly what your body needed.

Come grab your wokked moose.

Three days later, I returned home exhausted, ears ringing, smelling faintly of fire and mud. A perfectly respectable way to spend a weekend.