My baggage, instruments and personal items.

Had to get up around 5 in the morning, took a taxi to the airport with my sound tech Jens.

The SAS check in attendant gave us a lot of trouble. She insisted I could only send items weighing 32 kilos or less. I tried politely telling her I could, I have done it many times, could she please just look up the limits and the rate I had to pay? It's usually 720 NOK. She refused, and she was confusing me a little bit, why couldn't she just look it up, or talk to someone who knew? Eventually, I had to bring up SAS overweight webpage on my iPhone, and showing her what her company officialy states.

She just grumbled and mumbled, and finally sent it off.

It's a bit sad with people who doesn't know their job and is just being mean and troublesome. Especially at 6 in the morning before I've even had any coffee. Sigh.

The flight was almost empty, and very quiet.

Picked up at the airport by the festival, approaching Oslo.

The hotel floor I'm staying at, belongs to Victor The Elephant. Not sure what this means, do I have to pay for his "protection"?

I never saw him.

Nice hotel room. The palette is approved by Victor I suppose.

Transport to the festival area, on an island, by boat.

Very nice wooden boat.

No trouble with overweight baggage on this part of the route.

Boat trip to the festival was very relaxing, beautiful boat, fresh sea air and sun.

When we arrived at the festival, everything was a slow mess, nobody knew anything, everything incredibly delayed.

It took us an hour just to find out who to talk to and what would happen.

I thought it was very weird to set me up for start at 1200 (noon), that's way early even for a festival. My show was now postponed to 1500.

So after arrival there was nothing else to do but wait. Christine Litle (vocals on the last few albums) came by to say hello and we had a nice time catching up while waiting.

My managent tried to set me up for a spot after dark, because my show relies heavily on visuals; playing without is sort of missing half the fun.

The festival wanted me to open the show, and insisted the tent would provide adequate visual setup for projection, even in daytime. 

We never found out if it did, because the projecting equipment never arrived anyway, even with 3 hours of delay, where nothing really happened. What a mess! At least I had lots of time to set up my stuff, and I did some changes to the set, there are some tracks that doesn't work very well without visuals, so I skipped those.

The biggest let down for this was that I lost Dr Doppeltganger, and our communication which I think brings a very nice and lively touch to the show.

The backstage area.

At 1500, there were almost nobody inside the festival area, I don't know if there was really anyone on the island. I wasn't surprised.

After I started playing, people slowly came lounging by, and to my surprise I had a really great time. The sound system was huge and I had delicious sound, I enjoyed playing and had fun. The few people who stayed, lounged on the grass and there was a nice atmosphere.

I took the opportunity to try out a bunch of new tracks I've been working on for the next album. That was helpful, I learned a lot. Satisfied with one of them, the others need more work.

All in all, musically for myself the show was a success, even if I lost the visuals and Doppel.

The DJ taking over after my set. She played very nice organic house. Again, like with me, very few people actually inside the festival area.

We packed down my gear and relaxed at the grand backstage (pictured above).

The tent stage. Not a lot of people, there's a few groups inside dancing.

View from the tent towards the beach.

As you can see, there were lots of ninjas at the festival.

We didn't want to stay on the island for long, so after packing down and talking to some friends, we took a boat back to Oslo to grab some food.

View from the boat coming into Oslo harbour, with the Opera in front.

I was travelling with my regular sound tech Jens, and looking at the Opera we talked about how weird my last years have been, we're really not doing any regular shows at all. A little over a year ago, my music was performed by a full orchestra at the Opera in the picture. I'm playing regular concerts with all my different projects at a small coffee shop. I just played a crowded Rockefeller (large club venue in Norway) - but crowded with kids high on sugar. I performed live with two tractors. And now today I played for an empty party tent on an empty party island.  

But one great thing about playing early, you are finished early!

I am used to playing very late, which means a whole day of anxious waiting, and then little or no social time after the show.

We put the stuff back at the hotel and went for a nice Italian meal, relaxing in the sun, just talking and chilling. I'm staying over for tomorrow, Jens also he's doing sound for another artist at the festival.

Eventually I was pretty tired, was up early, so after a few delicious pints at a brown pub, when dark approached I imploded.

There were posters for the festival some places, but most people I talked to told me the festival hadn't been properly promoted.

Good night Oslo, heading back to the hotel.

Conclusion; the festival was a mess, but not in a cruel and stupid way, I think they mean it well but this is the first year and lots of things weren't ready in time. Being the first act that mean we had to take the brunt of the problems.

Nevertheless I had a great time, I got to try out new tracks, and add another weird experience to my expedition logs.