Sun and mud at Arvikafestivalen

Arvikafestivalen has always been a gamble with the weather. You arrive expecting one thing and leave having survived another. One moment the Swedish sun is doing its best impression of the Sahara, baking thousands of pale Scandinavians dressed in black and paler than Marilyn Manson. A few hours later the sky tears open, the campsite turns into soup, and everyone quietly accepts that wet boots are simply part of the admission price.

My empire of dirt.

Last year, I wore a Nine Inch Nails shirt around the grounds. A girl stopped me and said she’d always dreamed of seeing them at Arvika. We both laughed at the prospect. Trent Reznor in the forests of Värmland? That belonged in the same category as unicorns and reasonably priced festival food.

A year later, there he was. Trent Reznor Almighty descended to the deep forests of Värmland and I’m sure that girl was somewhere in the large audience. The Stockholm show in 2007 may have been technically tighter, but festivals aren’t about technical perfection. They’re about standing in the open air with thousands of equally exhausted strangers while the bass rolls across the forest and everyone forgets about tomorrow for a short while.

One day I’ll fly away.

The rest of the weekend wasn’t exactly lacking. Depeche Mode made everyone in Värmland line up, even though it certainly wasn’t one of their best performances. DAF delivered the kind of mechanical precision that still sounds vaguely dangerous. Fever Ray felt like she’d emerged directly from the surrounding woods, hidden behind a forest of green lasers. Thåström remained effortlessly cool as always. Röyksopp turned the Apollo tent into one enormous dance floor, while Elegant Machinery and Welle:Erdball reminded everyone why Arvika have long been the spiritual home of Sweden’s synth crowd. Welle even threw a Commodore 64 into the audience. Somewhere, an entire generation of geeks instinctively reached out with both hands.

Du bist DAF.

One of the pleasures of festivals is that the schedule is only half the story. Musicians drift between stages like everyone else. Suddenly Robyn, Karin Dreijer (Fever Ray, The Knife) and Anneli Drecker (Bel Canto) appear alongside Röyksopp. Anna Ternheim unexpectedly joins Thåström. Those moments never make the poster, but they’re the ones people remember years later.

Welle:Erdball.

By the end of the weekend I’d been roasted by the sun, soaked by thunderstorms and covered in enough mud to qualify as an archaeological find. I’d seen old friends, discovered new bands and somehow found a place serving genuinely decent coffee. That last part may actually have been the most unbelievable thing of all.