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04/05.09.2009 Preview Verket-Festival (Mo i Rana)

Monday, August 24th, 2009

July 2009. I just returned from my vacation in Norway – including an absolutely amazing concert of Kaizers Orchestra at Månefestivalen in Fredrikstad. And coming back home from vacation is always bad – especially, if you don’t have another vacation planned, no concert trip, nothing. Just work to look forward to…

This and the fact that I assume Kaizers will take another break now made me think – there must be some other festival show I can see this summer, right? So I checked the dates. Almost all shows were in the next two, three weeks. Hrmpf. I mean, I have a great job and can take days off whenever I like most of the time. But then, I DO have to work once in a while inbetween my trips. And I can’t come home from vacation and go back to Norway the next week, that feels stupid.

I checked the dates again. Hmm, this Verket festival at the beginning of September? That would be the perfect time. I can allow myself another weekend trip then, can’t I? And most probably it’s gonna be the last show before the break, another reason to go there. I thought I remembered that I had considered this show before but dismissed the thought before it could really settle. Why was that? And by the way, where in Norway is Mo i Rana?

A few minutes and a short visit to Google Maps later the memory of why I had dismissed the thought was back, and somehow the date didn’t seem quite that perfect anymore…

But hey, I don’t call myself Konzertjunkie for nothing! There’s trains to Bodø, right? So it’s gonna be affordable. Hey, and they can’t take much more than… uh, 16 hours from Oslo. *cough* OK, maybe flying is a better alternative. Hey, and not even that expensive!

To cut it short: Three days later I had found a pretty good flight connection that would get me to Bodø Friday afternoon and back to Germany by Monday afternoon. And even affordable! AND: I had convinced a friend to come along! 🙂 (Well, if you can call “Festival? Kaizers? YES of course, I’m almost done booking, when was that again???” convincing… *lol*)

So, now I’m going up to Mo i Rana to see Kaizers play at Verketfestival. And because you can’t travel that far just to see one band, I’m going to Bodø Friday, gonna meet my friend there, we’ll hire a car to go down to Mo i Rana, might catch (hopefully!) a bit of the festival on Friday night already, have a nice day visiting the area on Saturday, a GREAT evening with even better music and concerts, and then we’ll have the whole Sunday to drive back to Bodø and see a bit of Nordlandet. Jippie, I am SO looking forward!

Oh, but this was actually supposed to be about the festival a bit here as well… 😉
So, Verket will take place for the first time this year, so it’s gonna be really interesting. In general, I have the feeling that (especially small) festivals in Norway are organized much better than in Germany. But then, for the first time? We’ll see how that works out. It won’t be perfect, probably, but then it is gonna be small, which is something that I love. 🙂
And the program got a lot to offer: On Friday, it’s gonna be Katzenjammer (who we will miss, most probably :(), Marit Larsen, CC Cowboys, and Paperboys. And on Saturday I guess I’ll just HAVE to check out Alexander Rybak, then Hjaltalin from Iceland will be there (I saw them at Slottsfjell and liked them pretty good), and as headliners The September When and Kaizers. What else could you wish for? 🙂

So, I can’t wait! I have to admit though that it does feel a bit strange to go up to the arctic circle for a festival just because Kaizers play there – especially now, since it’s been confirmed that they will play a free festival close to Oslo the same weekend – but hey, we are gonna have so much more fun up there! *g*

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Var dette alt?

Monday, August 17th, 2009

I’ve seen lots of Kaizers concerts. Good ones, bad ones, festival shows, club shows, you name it. Lately, the concerts have changed… not to the worse (not at all!), but they are somehow different.

It started with the “b-sides tour”, the tour where Kaizers played lots of songs they normally don’t play. What did I expect before that tour? Honestly: “Yeah sure, they say that every time, and then they play the same stuff as always. Just like they always say they’ll change the setlist every day, and in the end, they never change anything.”

Then I heard about the setlist from the first concert and couldn’t believe it. But hey: “Yeah, okay, first concert. They’ll change the setlist, latest when they come to Europe.” Yes, of course they did. But only slightly! And I would have bet all my money on a “boring” setlist, at least in Europe.

Then, out of nothing, they suddenly announced the Våre Demoner album and the corresponding club shows. Something completely different. A triumphal tour, I have to say – it was just perfect. And 100% different from every other Kaizers show I’d seen so far!

Then the concert together with Farmers Market. Now there’s another cooperation with Nephew. Geir is doing documentaries about Kaizers. They announced a theater play, containing their music.

The festival shows this year are fantastic. I’ve only seen one up to now, but that was one of their best festival shows I’ve seen. And from what I read, the other festival shows are at the same level – which is something that is fairly unusual for Kaizers, to be honest. They tend to have a few great concerts and then a bad one. That’s just the way it is – or the way it used to be, at least.

So, why am I writing all that? Well, to me it seems that at the moment, Kaizers try really hard to NOT do the usual stuff. To do concerts differently, to play different songs, to change songs. Or in other words, to not get bored by what they are doing.

And yes, that’s really what I feel they are doing: Trying to hold on, trying to keep things interesting. Or maybe even to make them interesting again. I have a kind of feeling that they are burned out. That they can’t go on the way they used to. That they either have to do something different or call it a day and stop. No more Kaizers.

And honestly, this summer, this triumphal Våre Demoner tour followed by the fantastic festival shows, would be just the time to quit. ‘Cause you should quit while you’re ahead, right? And I doubt it can go up much higher. They are at their best, absolutely.

So yes, I admit, I am a bit afraid Kaizers will be history soon. I hope they won’t, I hope they can find a way to go on, to have fun in what they are doing, and I really don’t want them to quit.
But if they do, I won’t be one of the people screaming “you can’t do that to us”. Because it’s not about us, the fans, but about the band. And we have the memories. And the music. Of a fantastic band.

And this video sums it all up – another hint? Hopefully not…

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Kaizers go theater

Sunday, August 16th, 2009

Hmm… OK, so Kaizers will do a theater play now. Based on their lyrics, based on their text universe.

I don’t know. Somehow, I feel bad about that. Not so much because I think this might “be the end” (but that deserves another entry) – because hey, if that’s what they choose, that’s what they choose, and it’s just a fact to deal with, not anything to be sad about. But because I think it doesn’t do them justice.

I know that for lots of people, and even for a lot of fans (which I can’t really understand, honestly), Kaizers is their “mafia universe”. Well, sure, that is part of Kaizers. You can’t listen to the first albums without delving into the Kaizers universe. But is that really all? Can you reduce Kaizers to mafia, to the dark and mysterious, to Resistansen? No, I don’t think so. It’s just lyrics, nothing more. Music needs lyrics, so you have to come up with something, whatever it might be. For Kaizers, it was the underground universe, at least in the beginning. So yes, this milieu is related to Kaizers in my opinion as well. But it’s NOT what makes Kaizers.

Kaizers are so much more. I really can’t see them reduced to just this mafia thingy. And I fear that this is just what will happen. And they push it themselves, that’s what I don’t really get. But well, we’ll see – I’m sure it’s gonna be a fun play, no question about it. I’ll love it. It will be Kaizers. But it will never be all that Kaizers stand for, at least not for me. And I find it really sad that lots of people see Kaizers in this context, and in this context only. And no, I’m not talking about the people who hardly know Kaizers, but mostly about the fans. The fans that didn’t like Maskineri because it didn’t have a theme. (Of course it’s fine to not like Maskineri, but this reason is pretty lame…) The guys who judged competition entries and rejected my text adventure because it didn’t have a Kaizers atmosphere (meant was: a mafia atmosphere… ’cause there was a Kaizers atmosphere, but you would have to look at it for more than two minutes to find it…). The people that insist on gas masks and oil barrels on stage.

I always had the feeling Kaizers wanted to get away from that image. And now they turn around, 180°, and focus on the image they wanted to get rid of. Now, anybody care to explain that to me?

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