well, it started as a joke. my girlfriend’s sister lives at ås, and she
jokingly suggested that since i claimed to be a psychonaut, we should make
the trip from oslo and see them play at her school. at first i wasn’t too
enthusiastic about this, as i had already seen them at rockefeller four days
earlier, and had a ticket for the bergen show the following weekend, and
feared that three shows in a week would be pushing it a bit. as things
turned out, however, i never made it to the bergen show (thank you NSB), so
i had to settle for two shows in four days.
  i had been warned about shows at ås. the place is filled with farming
students, who reportedly get no higher pleasure out of life than dancing
swing to all kinds of music. we didn’t spot any farmers on the train,
however, the closest we got was a no-fish olsen-lookalike.
  the band took the stage around midnight. they started with rad freq, and i
immediately took a dislike to the crowd - during the quiet intro they just
kept talking, which came close to ruining the song. the next song, which,
according to dr. kloos’ playlist, was called other 2 fool, was a long one -
this version must have been a lot longer than the one they did at
rockefeller. they seemed to be in the right mood for playing long songs -
the third one of the night was superstooge/the wheel. superstooge - while
listening to trust us i’ve tried over and over again to make it through this
song, but i always end up hitting the ‘skip’-button. when performed live,
however, it’s very easy to make it to the end, especially when the end is
part of the wheel, this monster of a song.
  these first three songs must have lasted at least half an hour. i wondered
whether this was some kind of a joke on the farmers, who probably had had a
hard time dancing swing so far. another longie followed - watersound - a
marvellous version, but not quite as good, or as surprising, as at
rockefeller. the second unreleased song of the night, fade to grey followed
(yet another ugly list: favorite songs with three words in the title, and
whose abbreviation ends in -tg: 1. stg. 2. ftg). an impressive version of
psychonaut came next, before the real highlight of the night - manmower.
pure excellence, i’m afraid.
  standing in front of the mixing desk, we noticed that no-fish olsen was
retreating from the front, and ended up standing in front of us. i had no
idea he was so tall, and for the rest of the show he obscured the view quite
a bit, especially for my girlfriend, who always skipped the porridge when
very young, and therefore stopped growing at 150 cm. beerglasses carried by
others in the crowd very frequently hit her in the face.
  well. can ever9 be described as aver8? it can, if you’re a friend of very,
very weak puns. having ended this song, they pulled another masterpiece out
of their sleeves (well, both bent and geb were wearing t-shirts), flick of
the wrist. 
  a marvellous you lied followed, and they closed with btc/btc. 
  so far i was very satisfied. it seems that snah, who for some reason
forgot to pack his razor when leaving home, is improving as a singer, and he
also more frequently expresses his enjoyment visibly on stage. the new songs
had some kind of a sixties feel, and during the break i wondered where the
time travels would stop, and if they eventually would end up in the fifties.
amazingly, when the band returned, bent announced that they’re gonna play
some gamalrock, and they ploughed their way through summertime blues (fun),
shakin’ all over (annoying) and young man blues (a song they should have
buried years ago).
  they left, and returned. the final encore was, disappointingly, but not
too surprisingly, that bloody surfer. am i the only one that feels that the
golden core should be returned to this spot? the surfer, good a song as it
is, should end the first or ordinary set, and the show should close with the
core.
  in all, an enjoyable night, and a good show (my fourth this year - at this
rate i will be in my early fifties when i fulfill my ambition of witnessing
100 mp-shows). we walked home rather satisfied, knowing that we had both
touched the sweater of somebody who resembled no-fish olsen.

E


setlist (as written by dr. kloos):

rad freq
other 2 fool
superst/wheel
wasserlaut
fade to grey
p-nut
m.mower
ever 9
flick a da w
u lied
black to comm
-
sum blues
shakin all over
young man blues
-
v.s.

(if anybody, for some reason, wants this piece of paper, they can have it)

-


hefeh@etno.uib.no (Eirik Helleve)