Slottsfjell Festival Round-Up

Slottsfjell Festival in Tonsberg, some miles south of Oslo on the coast of Oslofjord, was a fairly joy-filled experience, and one that was mercifully free from inane British drunks that populate summer shindigs back home (myself excluded). This is probably because the event itself pays its dues to a centuries-old tradition of festivals celebrating the advent of summer, meaning that people are too seasoned to get tanked on warm Stella and stage muddy jousts using shopping trolleys and sanitary towels before noon. In fact, Tonsberg is the oldest town in Norway, founded in 875 CE, and the festival itself is named after the castle fort, Slottsfjell, on top of the hill in the centre of town. Other interesting facts found on Wikipedia include the town’s reputation for being home to Norway’s first book of nationwide law as well as that red haired woman from Aqua. Lord have mercy.

History lesson over and my memory is cast back to the Thursday of the festival, when the weather was very sunny and I decided to wear a pair of sandals in a bid to tan my milky white feet, which earned me the epithet “teenage lesbian” from a man that looked like Rasputin. Earlier on that day, New York’s Cerebral Ballzy had made an equally adolescent spectacle of themselves in front of a crowd of mums and dads who were sat on the grass in front of the stage drinking cider. No one is quite was sure how to gauge their reaction to lead singer Honor’s climbing of the rigging, flipping of the bird and pretence of jerking-off with the microphone, but apparently one of them almost got nicked later on, so their east coast renaissance punk must have put someone’s back up.

Meanwhile on the castle stage, Deerhunter played a feeble set hampered by sound quality that evoked the aural quality of someone kicking a cardboard box and playing a kazoo backwards. Bradford Cox was dressed up like Billy Bunter Goes Boating and wearing the face paint of a Parisian mime, however, so not all was lost. After that there was just enough time to ponder how Joey Belladonna from Anthrax who had shredded the mainstage earlier looks like one of Roald Dahl’s witches, before Oslo’s no wave riot grrlt trio, Deathcrush, headlined a tiny stage under some trees, playing  ‘Sex Is Confusion’ era Sonic Youth. On the way there I was warned away from seeing them by someone who said the two female axe players toss their hair like pantomime rockers The Darkness; this was inaccurate, as their headbanging was far more in the style of Def Leppard.

Old men dominated Friday: namely Erasure, Grinderman and Monster Magnet. Erasure were not bad, and rolled out hits such as ‘Chorus’, ‘Sometimes’ and ‘Respect’ with conviction (Though singer Andy Bell has recently been filming ITV’s Popstar to Operastar, so some of the numbers had the faintest touch of someone singing an overambitious karaoke version of ‘Nessun Dorma’). Grinderman were Grinderman and there is nothing particularly wrong with them per se, save the fact that they essentially exist as vehicle for Nick Cave to complain about his dwindling libido. There is, however, something to be said for the fact that due to their ubiquitous presence on today’s festival circuit they have begun to inhabit a spectrum of cultural cache normally colonised by Coldplay. So next time you find yourself in smug, self-congratulatory mode for possessing the common sense to eschew Chris Martin for Cave at one of these events, really, don’t bother.

Finishing the day were Monster Magnet, whose three decades old brand of southern groove, stoner rock and obsession with extraterrestrial life has been preserved in formaldehyde, which is definitely a good thing. Physically speaking time has been pretty hard on frontman Dave Wyndorf, who appears to have doubled in size since his 90s heyday, but apparently it’s all because he’s given up the booze and the drugs, so praise be indeed.

Saturday’s highlights featured… more old men and a bit of rain. Mudhoney played a great classic set of hits to middle aged blokes wearing technical hiking shoes, cargo shorts and Quicksilver t-shirts who seemed to know every word. Afterwards, their label mates Mogwai inexplicably managed to shoe horn in three songs into their 40-minute set, occasionally using parts of the stage as props to play/throw their instruments with/against. This was good, and easily the best thing that happened at the festival, and proved that even if you’ve been around for years and years there’s no excuse for being boring and grey.

Huw Nesbitt