John Olav Nilsen og Gjengen @ Øya Festival
Oslo, Norway 13th August 2009
There are the new indie bands (talking actual independent here) that sound like a bad mix of everything you love from the 60s, 70s and 80s and then you find some who occasionally stand out. John Olav Nilsen & Gjengen (which translates to John Olav Nilsen & the Gang) belong to the latter. They have been honoured for starting the new ‘Bergen wave’ picking up and continuing the thread that fellow Bergen bands Kings of Convenience and Datarock started earlier this decade.
The seven guys entered the Vika stage at about 6 o’clock this Thursday to great applause from a front row packed with fellow ‘Bergeners’ under the grey Oslo sky. The band is from a Bergen suburb called Loddefjord, locally known as the ‘Ghetto’ area of Bergen with clusters of council blocks.
From the first minute it had all the signs of a good gig, and within seconds the weather shifts and the sun is shining. The couple hundred people in the crowd were pleasantly diverse, meaning you got the hardcore followers in the front screaming and jumping (most of them from the Bergen area), intense listeners in the middle, and everyone else relaxing on the green spot just a bit on the side from the stage.
Vocalist John Olav Nilsen is tall, dressed in black and standing on the very edge of the stage reaching for the audience that stretches their hands towards him. His voice is far from text book perfect but there’s a nostalgia about his presence. His style evokes memories of long lost days, San Fran in the 60s, the beat generation and Joe Strummer movement in London.
It’s really satisfying to catch a band that gives their all in full force, playing every gig like it were the last. Norwegian punk might not be your thing — too much screaming and violence? John Olav and his crew on the other hand have something poetic about them, I wouldn’t say soft, perhaps romantic. It’s not punk-till-your-ears-bleed or soft-pop-till-you-puke but oddly a combination that makes perfect sense. John Olav Nilsen & Gjengen has the very it that lacks on today’s music scene; a force strong enough to blow you away.
John Olav Nilsen og Gjengen is a live band, meaning their music does them better justice played live than hearing them on record. «I’ve listened to them a bit on Urørt, but it’s the first time I’ve seen them live, and I love their lyrics. They are wicked live, even better,» said Anette. This is her 5th Øya festival.
What the band as a whole really knows and does well is building up a perfect escalating set. Contra to many bands I have endured during the festival so far, there is nothing random about John Olav & co’s set list. You can tell by the crowd, as songs pass by the temperature rises, and John Olav has about 200 backup singers all screaming the Bergen lyrics from the top of their lungs.
It’s all a love affair between band and audience, just the way it should be, and you will leave a John Olav concert with the song ’10 ganger 1000’ (10 times 1000) haunting you, and a new favourite band.
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One Response to “Øya ‘09: The next BBB (Big Bergen Band) has arrived!”
solfrid - September 8th, 2009 at 16:51
fotografen har fotografert tissen til vokalisten i det gyldne snitt på det første bildet! haha.