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Anders, many thanks for the review! Fantastic read and very valuable to seek out highlights in these recordings. The good documentation allows for a a very balanced assessment of the various shows, without the attendance bias that always happens when we review shows the day after the gig. Please keep them coming, I would love to reexpereince this tour that way. Happy couch-touring
MOTORPSYCHO’S TRONDHEIM (September 2023)
+++ Photo gallery +++
In September 2023 I traveled from Berlin to Trondheim to meet an old friend and see Motorpsycho in concert, in the band’s hometown. While MP would also play in Berlin on this tour they had a different drummer and different repertoire for the Norwegian leg of the tour.
I had dreamt of going to Trondheim for over 25 years, ever since becoming a MP-fan in the Nineties. This pilgrimage to the origins of the band led us to sites where the band has worked and lived, rehearsed and performed during their early years.
And it all began with Svartlamon, a little anarchist enclave, like a smaller version of Copenhagen’s Christiana. It’s a a little unkempt area of the larger Lademoen neighbourhood in the East of the city center, basically just a triangle of three streets tucked away between the old harbour and the train tracks, where you can find wooden residential houses, two alternative pubs, the concert venue Verkstedhallen (where they played on this tour), some self-built huts, shacks and eco-houses, community gardens, a kindergarden, chickens, dogs, bicycles, murals, street art and graffitis. It was here in Svartlamon, that the band and their companions lived, worked and ran their business (their office supposedly still operates from here), embedded in this special enviroment, a product of this special milieu.
MP fans will of course know that Svartlamon was immortalized by the famous bike-ride in the music video “Wearing Yr Smell” (a song off of 1994’s masterpiece “Timothy Monster”), in which the band rode bicycles through their hood. Motorpsycho have also performed in Svartlamon through the years, the most notorious clip on YouTube being a 1995 version of “The One Who Went AWay”. The band has last performed the very same space in September 2023 during the annual Eat The Rich Festival and the stage schedule announcing their set for Saturday at 6 pm was still hanging in Gregus’ backyard when we visited.
What you can see in the videos, especially the iconic backyard of the red house, which they call “Gregus’ backyard, is still there, only the trees have grown and the trains run behind a wall now.
Just a stone’s throw from Svartlamon, across some defunct cargo train tracks, is Dora, a giant former Nazi submarine bunker where the band has rehearsed for the better part of the 1990s, taking advantage of three meter thick concrete bunker walls.
Also in the old harbour area, a short walk away, Rockheim can be found, the national museum of Rock music. Motorpsycho have a worthy display there, all virtual and digital, but though at first skeptical we indulged in music videos, immersive displays and pictures of various memorabilia and ultimately we could have spent much more time on checking out all sideprojects, related and local bands.
Scattered across the town we also looked for or came across many venues Motorpsycho have performed or recorded at through the decades, which we knew by heart from concert histories or bootleg lists. For the early days of the band UFFA was the most notorious one (the first EP was recorded here in 1990), Studenter Samfundet another one (they performed here from the mid 90s to the mid 00s) and Byscenen is the venue where the annual Christmas gig takes place, and there were also Café 3B, Ramp and Rosendal Teater.
This was a fantastic walking tour of Motorpsycho’s Trondheim and we washed down the impressions with a cold S.T.G. beer — whose name references one of the most performed Motorpsycho songs — at the cosy Antikvariatet Bar before heading to the sold out hometown show at Svartlamon’s Verkstadhallen by our heros — the one and only Motorpsycho from Trondheim.
Of the two nights that I saw of the final part of tour, Dresden and Berlin, the former was clearly the night to see. While Dresden was an outstanding psychedelic highlight with a sublime cohesion throughout, Berlin was a bit of a disjointed affair, imo.
Berlin was very heavy, big, rocking and proggy. A righteous cleansing for sure! A capital city kinda show as a friend put it.
However, the setlist flow didn’t work, there were some fillers (“Magic & Wonder”) and at two points in the show their jams hit a dead end (!!!), when they actually had to restart with Bent counting in “One, two, three”. When did that ever happen? There were only three jams: “Lady May” (wonderful!), “Tower” and “Lacuna”. “Rock Bottom” was a lot of fun and actually smoking hot. “Year Zero” was totally redone, very heavy and suprising and “Superstooge” was too loud, very brutal and sort of disturbing in its brief noisy onslaught. Generally good punchy but well defined sound throughout the night.
When they came out Bent introduced them as “Wir sind die psychotischen Motoren…er…sorry…Motor*innen”, which made me chuckle. Ingvald’s drum solo was prompted by the crowd who let MP know that he IS the new drummer now. It seemed at first he wouldn’t know what do with his solo, Bent sneered, as if to say, alright, now show us what you can pull off, set down his bass and left the stage. Poor Ingvald, he was now the sole entertainer but he managed well
Everyone seemed to call “The Wheel” before the show and for sure we got it. A 20 minute version, well played for a tour debut. The first heavy section felt like a military march, kinda stiff and strict. I didn’t like it in the moment but thought it quite fitting the next day. There were some sour vocals. I would have prefered a well oiled tour staple with a jam instead the tour debut of a classic with a fixed structure that I am lucky enough to have caught on each tour since 2017. But I do realize that is only me because most others got a major kick from the one and only “The Wheel”. That being said “Plan #1” and “The Wheel” to end a sold out concert in a city they have been playing since 1993 is of course huge…
Ps: Where can hear I Kanaan’ version of “The Wheel”? Wow, didn’t know that…
MOTORPSYCHO AUF TOUR
Spiel der Assoziationen
Von Christian Riethmüllerorrest Gumps sprichwörtlich gewordener Vergleich des Lebens mit einer Schachtel Pralinen lässt sich immer auch auf die Konzerte der norwegischen Die norwegische Band Motorpsycho zeigt auch im Colos-Saal in Ascha!enburg
wie ungemein vielfältig und originell ihre Klangwelt ist.Forrest Gumps sprichwörtlich gewordener Vergleich des Lebens mit einer Schachtel Pralinen lässt sich immer auch auf die Konzerte der norwegischen Die norwegische Band Motorpsycho zeigt auch im Colos-Saal in Ascha!enburg
wie ungemein vielfältig und originell ihre Klangwelt ist.Gruppe Motorpsycho anwenden: Man weiß nie, was man bekommt. So facettenreich ist das Werk der seit 1989 bestehenden Formation aus Trondheim, die zu den originellsten Rockbands Europas gehört. Die hat aus Psychedelic- und Prog-Rock, Heavy Metal und Stoner, Country, Folk, Electronica und Jazz eine ganz eigene Klangwelt gescha!en, die auf die reiche Geschichte der Rockmusik und ihre vielen Spielarten und Subgenres zugreift, aber nicht fortwährend zitiert oder vertraute Muster variiert, sondern gekonnt Assoziationen weckt, die bei jedem Hörer anders und damit individuell sind.
Eine falsche Fährte zu legen, gehört dabei gewiss auch zum Spiel, wie nun zum Auftakt des Motorpsycho-Konzerts im voll besetzten Colos-Saal in Ascha!enburg, als Sänger und Bassist Bent Sæther, Gitarrist Hans Magnus Ryan und der neue Schlagzeuger Ingvald Vassbö das erwartungsfrohe Publikum zur Begrüßung fragen, ob es Boogie möge. Und sich dann erst einmal mit akustischen Gitarren wie um ein
imaginäres Lagerfeuer versammeln und mehrstimmig „Dank State“ vom aktuellen Album „Yay!“ anstimmen, ein maximal Boogie-ferner Folksong, dem weitere drei Stücke im Singer/Songwriter-Modus folgen, die Zuhörer schon ungeduldig fragen lassen, wann denn nun die Rockmaschine angeworfen werde.Die kommt dann auch und zwar mit der Gewalt eines kilometerlangen Güterzugs, der alles und jeden überrollt, mit Ryan nun meist an der doppelhalsigen Gitarre und Sæther am doppelhalsigen Bass-/Gitarren-Modell, seit bald vier Jahrzehnten im Zusammenspiel aufeinander abgestimmt wie Zahnräder in einem Uhrwerk. Zwei Musiker traumwandlerisch auf sonischen Erkundungsreisen, von Vassbö subtil
angetrieben, mit Dynamik und Tempi spielend, auch Disharmonien nicht scheuend und dabei über zweieinhalb Stunden einen Groove aufbauend, der den Saal schon
überwältigt hat, bevor es den versprochenen Boogie noch als Praline gibt: eine tolle Version des UFO-Klassikers „Rock Bottom“.Quelle: F.A.Z. | 29.10.2023, 20:19
Christian RiethmüllerWhat an amazing gig, so thoroughly mindblown! My god, how they have grown in the last two weeks, how together they are! The playing is on a whole another level now, with a natural ease but an insane thrust and attack at the same time. The main set was an infinite psychedelic trip, wild and raging Motorfloyd space jams in each number.
Beautiful acoustic set, “Babylon” radiating melancoly in its a weird and crooked beauty, so heartbreaking. “PPP” even had a little jam and some sort of new coda, also very enchanting. They nailed “Patterns”, especially the vocals, quite a feat to achieve. “Sentinels” feels like THE keeper of the new tunes, the natural opener of a main set, and it too has grown so much, this night it quickly spiraled higher and higher and even HIGHER to an INSANE burning climax (Ingvald killing it). Once inside the “Arne H”-jam I felt thrown back to the first great trio era, 1997-1999, and the height of the jam could have been cut and beamed right from the peak of any “K9” from that era. And so it continued with a sick version of “Manmower” and right into a major suprise that was the “Hell”-tour debut. When the jam was at its most powerful they seamlessly slipped into a rocking “Hogwash”, what a sick segue! Not a very long jam on “Hogwash” but rather a return to a beautiful “Hell”-reprise. Wowza! “Mona Lisa” was epic, “Entropy” a much needed breather before they just brought the house down with a far far out version of “Starhamster”. Lots of Snah on mellotron action throughout the whole show, I loved that! “Chariot” was the perfect encore, very powerful, exhausting the energy that was still left.
The trio is maybe my favourite incarnation of MP, so I am tempted to to say this was the best gig I’ve seen in a few years — maybe since the last trio gig in 2015 in Bielefeld — but it would be unfair towards to the many great gigs of the amazing tours with Tomas. Either way, this was simply AMAZING, Motorpsycho as good as they ever were. It’s hard to grasp to to get another trip like this tonight but I guess that’s what going to happen. I will stop my ramblings now and will see you all in a bit
Sounds excellent! Epic setlist indeed. Turn-out at Colos Saal as expected. Wish I could have attended. See you tonight and tomorrow!
Wow! Another great setlist. Also “Mona Lisa/Azrael”debut! That old Funkadelic tease in “Hogwash”, while standard around 2000, hasn’t been all too common in the last two decades, I think.
Sitting in the train back from Zwolle in great shape and mood, feeling enriched by the experience of having witnessed a top-shelf Motorpsycho show in the company of friends.
Hedon is a state-of-the-art Dutch venue, the type that offered perfect sound and wide-screen vision for the ca. 250 super devoted fans who religiously devoured every moment with rapt attention and in awestruck silence in a super intimate and relaxed setting. In fact, the sound where we stood was so good as if we were sitting inside the amps’ cabinets which allowed us to appreciate every little delicate note of this very patient, meticulously played, well-balanced, almost perfect concert.
There was not one single outstanding moment, jam or surprise but every version played was inspired and spot-on. The band was playing as good as they always did with Ingvald being a perfect fit for the powertrio.
Favourite moments included a beautiful jam in “Lady May”, Snah’s solo in “Sentinels”, a dramatic slow-but-heavy “On my pillow” , 18 minutes of “Arne H” including deep space travels with Snah helming the mellotron and the psychotic “Cosmoctopus”.
The encore, a brutally rocking juxtaposition to the main set was okay for what it was, that’s how it works on this tour, but I would have preferred an epic number such as “Lacuna”, “Taifun”, “Plan #1” — or “Mountain” if it had to be havy rock — that would have made the concert even rounder and more wholesome.
I love trio Motorpsycho and Ingvald is great, a welcome throwback to Geb vibes after we’ve seen two technical precision machines in the drummer’s seat the last 15 years.
At the end of the day a wonderful concert experience well worth my 1.100 kilometer round trip just for this one single show.
What Shakti wrote about the gig exactly mirrors my experience. In fact, I was very happy to read this spot on review because it confirmed my experience, which was so bad at the show I thought I must have been in a pretty skewed headspace to even consider leaving the show. I seriously doubted my own assessment (stone cold sober the whole night, btw). I mean, what kind of psychonaut walks out of a Motorpsycho show midway? Well, I thought, if you walked out now, it’s not like you would miss much because THIS is not going to improve…
The sound was really so loud and so bad, I feared about my health and it emphasized the many deficits of this line up and gig, i.e. Olaf’s thin drum sound and lack of tightness, cringy vovals, not so interesting setlist, relatively uninspired jams, The acoustic/laid back stuff was wonderful though and should have been extended to half of the gig.
