I’ve spent the weekend in Copenhagen, visiting the 25 year anniversary celebration of Club Metropolis. The club started in 1993 at Barbue, a venue located on the first floor of Huset. Barbue was shut down a few years later, but resurfaced this weekend.
I believe this was my fifth year at Way Out West, the gigantic outdoor city festival in my hometown Gothenburg. A lot has happened since my first visit in 2008.
Several years ago, I went to a Nine Inch Nails gig in Stockholm, at the same time as my own world collapsed around me. Trent hit a special note and I was moved to tears, transfixed by the flame. Two years later I stood alone in the rain, surrounded by thousands, while Trent teared away at his equipment in the forest of Arvika.
I spent the weekend in Köln, attending the 8th Amphi Festival. 16 000 visitors dressed in black invaded the German town for an overdose of electronic music.
I see people with headphones everywhere and I often wonder what they listen to. On the street, in the office, at the tram… I had an idea to make something out of this, but as usual someone else had already done it. So here you are.
I spent the weekend at an old abandoned amusement park in the deepest forests of Småland. It sounds like the plot of a bad zombie-splatter movie but it was even better. This was the first time the Kalabalik festival was held! The arrangers of sadly closed club Kalabalik in Växjö decided to gather a bunch of strange bands at an even stranger location, and voila! Instant success.
I’m back from the festival in Hultsfred, an annual event that died last year but got resurrected by the Scorpio necromancers to once more lay waste to the shores of lake Hulingen. Since Arvika festival was canceled a few weeks ago, this was one of the few places left in Sweden for festival concerts.
I recently got back from the Das Boot cruise, which went from Stockholm to Tallinn, Estonia. The main event onboard was of course the live gigs by Infected Mushroom, VNV Nation, Spetsnaz, Project Rotten, Autodafeh, Aesthetic Perfection, Spark, SPOCK, Kopfer Kat and more bands.
Dögnvill is a kind of arctic, yet urban, music festival. Tromsö is located 500 miles above the Arctic Circle and it was definitely the coldest festival I’ve ever been to. You could see snow-capped mountains from the festival area and cold air vapor were clearly visible from the singers! Most festivals I’ve been to have had very strict policy regarding under-aged visitors and alcohol, but this one was clearly an exception.
2009 must have been one of the busiest concert years ever. Perhaps in some way due to the decrease in record sales which forces the artists to hit the roads. Regardless of the reason I estimate that I visited about 80 gigs during the year, and here are some of the highlights.
