Follow Music Design’s Deidre Gott as she tours Europe with Austin’s own Shearwater…
June 25th – BergenFest in Bergen, Norway
I’m in Bergen, Norway and it’s freezing. Later I’ll find out that it reached record highs back in Austin, but right now, I’m rethinking what I’ve packed. I will definitely need to do a lot of layering.
We got in a day early. Mostly to recover a bit from jet lag before the guys have to play. There’s an eight hour difference between Norway and Austin. So I’m kinda writing to you from the future. Think about that.
Bergenfest is a four day festival, started in 1994. This year’s lineup includes Patti Smith, Kings of Convenience, Ingrid Michaelson, Jonathan Wilson and Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings. And of course Shearwater. I’ve taken my entire allotment of vacation time to sell merch for the band in exchange for a tour of European Festivals and clubs. And yeah, I’m pretty stoked.
So let’s start with BegenFest. It’s a smaller fest, only two stages. Since we got in a day early, I was able to catch Sharon Jones and The Dap Kings. It doesn’t get dark here until about 11:00pm so I kept thinking it was early afternoon. Nope, it’s 9:00pm.
Sharon Jones is awesome. My favorite line of her’s was “Keep your eyes on the prize” while pointing to her booty. Geez, that woman has a ton of energy.
The headliner was a guy named Bernhoft. We rode in a van from the airport to the festival with this guy earlier that day -a good looking dude and nice – but we had no idea he was a Norwegian pop star until we took a look at the lineup. He had top billing after Patti Smith. So we stayed for a few songs. He’s kinda like pop R&B. I guess the Norwegians eat that stuff up. The ladies were swooning. We decide to walk around Bergen and then call it a night.
Shearwater played late afternoon on Saturday. Right before them was a band called Team Me. I was just listening to their record last week! I had no idea they were Norwegian so that was a pretty neat surprise. They’re cute (and everyone knows I love me some cute indie pop) and just released their first album.
Shearwater played a great set. Since this was the first show of the tour, it had been about three weeks since the band had played together. Of course, they think the show was rough but I didn’t notice anything off. Even the excessive fog machine the festival had going on stage didn’t throw them.
Patti Smith played after Shearwater. Holy cow it is PATTI SMITH. She started off with “Because the Night” and played some songs from her new album. Then it started to rain and I hightailed it back to the hotel.
Tomorrow we have an eight hour drive to Oslo. All I can think about is:
June 26th – Drive to Oslo
Norway is the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen. This is what we saw on our 8 hour drive to Oslo.
Stay tuned for more!
– Submitted by Deidre Gott, Music Design