What can I say? The Friday gig was the incarnation (?) of every reason why I keep attending concerts with this band. Even though I didn't really get to hear any song I that I hadn't heard before, I was totally surprised. The setlist was very different from the Thursday gig, and even though I'd heard most of the "new" songs, they were rearranged from earlier versions, so I won't complain. It started nice with a Motorpsycho vorspiel with some friends (one of them recently told me that Germans actually don't use the word vorspiel, is that correct?), but suddenly we found ourselves in a hurry, we had to get to John Dee to queue up for the best spot up at the gallery. That is the boring part of every MP gig at Rockefeller. I think we stood there for 40 minutes or something. :o\ Well, they finally let us in, and that was the worst race I've ever experienced. All those people running as if they were chased by pitbulls with rabies, I bet it must have looked ridiculous to a "non-believer". But hey, my "posse" got very close to the best spot. Well, at least I did, hehe. I've got pointy elbows. From that spot I witnessed one of the absolutely best MP shows I've ever been to. Sure as hell, it is now on my top 3 list, along with the one in Lillehammer in 96 and Hamar last year. The first song, Stained Glass, was a pretty nice opener. It wasn't as long as it was the day before, probably because of the audience. There's the advantage, or drawback, depending on how you look at it, of a show with no age limit, as the Thursday gig. At a show with minors allowed, the majority of the crowd is not drunk, and therefore more quiet. That gives the band a chance to play a long, quiet outro on songs like Stained Glass. Not so on Friday, when people started cheering and applauding immediately when the band took the song down after the loud part towards the end. They probably stopped the song a couple of minutes earlier than on Thursday. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? To me it is a bad thing, because even though there's not much happening on the long, repetative outro on Stained Glass, it always annoys me when people think the song is over as soon as it starts "fading" (K9, anyone?). Anyhow, I didn't really mind when they ended the song so early. I was really surprised when they started playing S.T.G. right away, even though the guitar tuning is the same. BIG smiles all over the place! It rocked the house, of course, and Bent pulled his "point the bass down instead of lifting it up" prank on Snah again, much to my amusement. I hoped they would launch into Tristano on this one, which they did. A very different version from Thursday, it started kinda quiet and jazzy - swinging, you know, then it grew louder and harder. Even though I don't remember much of it now (can't wait to hear a recording of this gig!), I can say it was superb! Next song up was My Best Friend, and I agree with everyone who says longer is not necessarily better. The long, jammy intro gave me nothing, and I really think they should "compress" this song a little. But once it actually started, it was great, and the last jam part, with Bent's good, ol' "traktorbass" riff and all, was really cool. It's been a long time I've been surprised to hear Feel, but now I was. Beautiful. My only wish for this one is to hear Geb playing drums on it again. Now that Baard plays the mellotron parts, it's a waste of good musicianship that Geb only sits there making unvoluntarily funny faces. :oD I really had no idea of what was coming when they started playing Fade To Grey. When I heard the bass, I thought "what the hell? Are they going to cover Beck now?" That would of course have been way cool, and as mentioned before, the bass line sounds a lot like the one on Sissyneck. BUT! When the guitar riff came... aaah! This new version is soooo good! Love it! Another surprise was Walkin' With J, so early in the set. That was a very good idea, I think, because it's no surprise when they play it as an encore anymore. As on Thursday, it was a relatively short version, but with nice solos (or is that soli?) by Snah and Baard. That goes for the whole evening, actually. I don't remember on which songs they came, but the solos were many and great! It was introduced as a trøndersk folk song of some sort, can't recall exactly what Bent said. Next up: The Witch. Great fun! Then, fast and furiously: The Other Fool (with Bent on air violin), Hey Jane, Never Let You Out and The Nerve Tattoo. There seems to be no escape from this pop section, but at least I'm glad they put Never Let You Out (with "our very own Diesel Dahl") in between those others this time, because it's so fun. Now for some reason I can't remember much of Whip That Ghost. No technical problems for Snah this time. I'm sure it was very good. :o) I do remember the next song very well, though, for several reasons. 1) It was The Golden Core. Sentimental smiles and possibly some tears to be seen every way I looked. 2) I realised this must be the last song of the ordinary set. 3) Just when I *very* satisfied observed a totally silent crowd when the most quiet part of the song came, some idiots started shouting out this and that, and people shouted back "hush!" Both very distracting. During this part some moron close to where I sat yelled "Psycho Motorpsycho!" several times. I mean, what's the purpose of that? What do you achieve? People won't pat your shoulder and say "well spoken, brother". The band won't stop playing, raise their fists to salute and say, "that's right buddy! Psycho Motorpsycho!" I'm all for cheering and having fun during the rock songs, but please leave The Golden Core alone. When such things happen, I want to give those people euthanasia. Even though people talked a little too much in periods, I still think the audience was a good one. The atmosphere was great, and everybody seemed very happy. And we were all very excited when the band came back for the encore. Thorleif and The Other Anders were speculating around songs like Heartbreaker (I hoped for that one, too), Superstooge and such. We got Go To California. That was OK with me. :o) I just hope I'm not tired of it before I get it on vinyl. I Believe was brilliant again, I totally dig that song. Even though it's not that type of rock'n'roll, it somehow reminds me a little of Young Man Blues. But I like I Believe A LOT better, and musically it is more interesting, too, I think. Then came yet another surprise: Shakin' All Over. Yay! More fun! I do think the verses could have been more tightly arranged, though. But by all means, it was a great ending of the first encore. When the band went off for the second time, the stage techs immediately placed an extra mike stand upfront between Bent's and Snah's mikes. I thought, "what's this? Will we get an acoustic song with Baard on upright bass or something?" I turned to The Other Anders, and he said he thought it might be some Jokke stuff coming up. Then I just remembered I'd had the same thought earlier on Friday, "maybe they'll pay tribute to Jokke?" So they did. Baard went straight up to the mike, saying they'd like to play a song by Jokke & Valentinerne, as a tribute to a great artist, Joachim Nielsen, who died last week. Something like that. Then they played a perfectly rough version of Sola Skinner, with Baard on lead vocals, doing a very convincing, spastic performance. Again, GREAT FUN, but I wish the audience had been more enthusiastic about this. Both in respect of Jokke, and considering the fact that this was the major surprise of the evening. But what the hell. The final song played, which, according to Kjetil, was not on the setlist: The One That Went Away. Nice à capella singing by the crowd at the end, I couldn't hear anyone singing out of tune. :o) Bent looked very pleased. As a matter of fact, he really seemed to be enjoying himself the whole evening, doing a lot of posing, dancing, playing air violin and such. His basic move, though, was moving his right heel left-right, left-right while standing there playing, looking like a little boy who's "gotta go", if you know what I mean, haha. With Snah it's always harder to tell, because his face is always obscured by his hair. But, judging by his guitar work this evening, he was probably having a great time, as well as the rest of the band, I guess. It was cool to see Geb playing only in his shorts again, and Baard at one point found out that it is when not playing plonky solos, spinning on his chair was pretty fun. How long was this gig? About 2h 15min, perhaps? Pretty long for a Norwegian gig, but shorter than the one 6 months ago at the same venue. Still, it was filled up with highlights, so I'm perfectly satisfied. I'm equally amazed every time I attend concerts as this one, when I realize the band have lost none of their spirit, dedication, song writing skills, or chemistry. Thank you, Motorpsycho. And once again, hello to all the nice people I met. See you later! KristofferBack To Reports Page