I promised I’d write about the Spot 08 Festival and as I pride myself on being a man of my word I have now finally written down my thoughts on the festival. However, since so much time has passed since the festival took place, I’ll keep it a bit briefer than originally intended. My overall impression of the festival was very positive. I heard a lot of great music, met a lot of friends from both inside and outside the music industry, and I got to meet David Fricke. I saw about fifteen bands in two days, so I won’t mention them all, but among the most interesting were Teitur, The Crash, Saybia, Carpark North, Sondre Lerche, and The Teenage Idols.

Teitur is a singer/songwriter from the Faeroe Islands, who has had songs on the soundtrack to the show Jack & Jill. I saw him open for Ron Sexsmith once and he’s your average moody, white guy with guitar, but he’s also very charming and he has some really good songs. He’s written songs with Jeff Cohen, who co-wrote Crazy for this Girl with Evan & Jaron and whose band, Pancho’s Lament, wrote the theme for Jack & Jill, and since he's currently working on his debut album I think Teitur is a name you might want to remember.

The Crash already have an hit here with Lauren Caught My Eye and they were a lot better live than I thought they would be. I’ve only listened to their CD briefly and I didn’t really like it, but my sister wanted to see them, so we went to check them out. And they were surprisingly good. They are a very upbeat and happy pop band and they actually have a bunch of very catchy songs, so that was a pleasant surprise. They had a lot of energy on stage and people really seemed to enjoy their show.

Saybia are old friends of mine, but this was the first time I saw them live after they’ve gotten popular. They’re probably the most popular Danish band right now and it was fun seeing them again (I briefly spoke to them before the show, which was cool, because I haven’t seen them since July last year). The have some great songs and I was very pleased to hear them play an amazing cover version of Duran Duran’s Ordinary World. So that was a cool concert.

Carpark North is a new, Danish band, who I know mainly because the drummer is an acquaintance of my brother’s. I have their demo, which I didn’t really like and I was very surprised, when they started getting airplay on national radio. But they put on a great live show, where they showcased their technical skills and played with a lot of power. I was pleasantly surprised and it’ll be interesting to see if they’re able to capture that energy on a record at some point. And if not they'll still be a live act worth checking out.

I went to see Sondre Lerche, because I couldn’t get in to see Kent. There were about 1600 guests trying to get in to see Kent perform in a room that fit about 700 people. So people were queuing like crazy, but I couldn’t be bothered, so I went to see Sondre. And I’m glad I did. You know how most singer/songwriters are old, moody, and depressed bastards? Well, this kid is 19 and he’s just about the happiest son-of-a-bitch I’ve seen in a long time. He played these weird and happy love songs with a guy on pedal steel, which gave them a Hawaiian feel. He spoke Norwegian to the crowd and most of the things he said were pretty odd, but I only remember that he said that he’d never played for this many Danes before, but it was obvious that we all had nice parents, who’d raised us well. His excellent mood and great pop songs were really infectious, so everyone there instantly started laughing and smiling, which was great.

The last band I saw was the last band to play at the festival. They were called The Teenage Idols and could very well be the new The Hives. They played with an incredible energy and had some very catchy songs. I don’t know if their material holds up on a record, but live they were pretty amazing.

After the concert with The Teenage Idols I got to talk to David Fricke. Earlier that day I had heard him speak about Scandinavian music, where he had praised two Danish bands: The Raveonettes and Under Byen. He was familiar with a number of Danish bands from the sixties and he talked about how Scandinavian bands could become popular in the US. His main point seemed to be that he got fascinated by bands, who could offer him something, which he wouldn’t be able to find back home (like Under Byen, who mixes Danish folk music with elements from rock and electronica with a vocalist, who sounds like Björk in Danish). And several times he said of The Raveonettes and The Hives: “They rock! That’s all you need to know”.

I had enjoyed his very entertaining speech about Scandinavian music and I’m a big fan of Rolling Stone Magazine, so I walked up to him and talked to him a bit about the festival. He was amused by the fact that Danish band Sterling did Sheena is a Punk Rocker as an encore, but with Danish lyrics and he seemed to really be enjoying himself at the festival. I mentioned that my brother and I had been annoyed by seeing Destiny’s Child on the cover of RS instead of Joey Ramone, but he said he understood that choice and didn’t get bothered by stuff like that anymore (it also means we won’t be seeing Layne Staley on the cover anytime soon). We talked about Layne, Wilco, the new garage bands (he recommended the Yeah, Yeah, Yeahs), and the disappearance of clubs like Max’s Kansas City. I was wearing a CBGB’s shirt, so we also talked about the club and its history quite a bit. I mentioned I’d read Richard Hell’s Go Now and he recommended the book Please Kill Me, which chronicles the rise and fall of the New York punk scene. It sounds really good, so I’ll definitely have to check it out some time.

I think that was pretty much it for our conversation and for what I wanted to say about the festival. I wrote three reviews afterwards, so not only did I get in for free I also got to plug some of the bands I like. And you can’t really ask for more can you?

On a completely unrelated note I’m kinda looking forward to getting the hell out of this neighbourhood. As previously mentioned I have drunks, drug dealers, and junkies sitting on my doorstep every day and now since the weather has gotten nice it’s gotten even worse. But it culminated yesterday, when I heard yelling out in the street. A guy was sort of pushing this other guy, who looked very timid. A woman was yelling at the timid guy, and so were the people on my doorstep. The aggressive guy started punching the other guy in the face, but I guess because he was drunk and/or stoned, the punches he threw were pretty awkward and didn’t seem to do much harm. The timid guy just walked around in circles and didn’t try to fight back, but for some reason he didn’t try to get away, either. It was pretty brutal seeing this guy getting punched, but I didn’t particularly feel like getting involved and if the guy didn’t have enough brains to run away then it wasn’t really my fault if he took a beating.

I then go out to the kitchen and when I came back to the living room I heard some screaming, so I look out the window again. The timid guy is now lying on the ground, bleeding and I’m just in time to see the other one kick him in the face. Have you ever seen somebody getting kicked in the face? It’s beyond brutal. At this point there were a lot of people looking at this spectacle and I could see people reaching for their cell phones to call the police. The yelling woman grabbed the aggressive guy and they scuttled off together. A couple of young men tried to talk to the bleeding guy, while another one was on the phone and a couple of minutes later two police cars arrived. I don't know what happened then, but there were a lot of witnesses and people hanging around plus all the drunks on my doorstep, so I’m sure they'll have no problem identifying the attacker and hopefully he’ll spend some time in jail this summer.

After I've moved to my new apartment I might miss living so close to the cafés, shops, and clubs, but I definitely won’t miss the drunks.