2000-10-20 Oslo, Rockefeller N

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!


Kristoffer 
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