You Get Me Closer To God

Another long overdue blog post coming up. The first weekend of July was spent in Arvika, as during the last seven years, with good friends and the Arvika music festival. Originally I had planned on not going this year, but the line-up had me sold quite early on, and even Richard had to break his festival virginity to catch what was to be three days of music madness in the Swedish forest.

As I am, as mentioned, a bit overdue with this post, some things have been forgotten and I will focus on the highlights. First of all, the company was excellent. In fact, the company was so good the music hardly would have mattered, but of course it didn't make things worse either :D

First up was Mars Volta, an act I never managed to like on record and they did not exactly get me much more convinced on stage. Quite on the contrary. However, good company got even better as we located Ståle and Makrellbekken (who no longer lives there and hence hardly earns the name, but still) in the beer area.

First up of the good stuff, however, was Röyksopp. They played in the tent, where temperatures got _very_ warm and clammy after a couple of songs. Hence, when the notes of the-nemesis-of-that-which-is-good-music Eple started penetrating my ears, I figured it was time to leave. Unfortunately this lead to me missing out on most of the tracks I actually love by the band, alongside several guest appearances on stage I'd have loved to catch. I did manage to get a NIN T-shirt before they sold out, however :)

Next up was Nine Inch Nails. I've been a die hard fan of Reznor's since 1998, when Eivind took my music taste under his wing and transformed it into something unrecognizeable. Trent... ok, I'll not let this post become a rant about the loveliness of this man, but let me just say that where he stood, looking like he was head-on challenging the whole world to just _dare_ to try to fuck things up even more, he was as much enough justification for me loving music as he has ever been.

I ended the night by watching some of Elegant Machinery, but they didn't exactly kick much ass after NIN, and they seemed to be painfully aware of it. Hence the night was cut a little short, but I fell asleep with a huge grin on my face!

Friday's music program started out with me hooking up with an old pop quiz buddy in the beer tent and jumping around to De/Vision. Not bad, not bad at all. It hardly got worse when Depeche Mode kicked off their concert on the main stage half an hour later. Oooh, Gahan is so the man, and if it weren't for Trent the night before this concert would have made the festival. Went home after, very tired.

On Saturday I was very lazy, and hence I missed Fleet Foxes (never liked them on record anyway, so probably not a big loss), and half of Thåström. I did arrive at the festival area just when he played my favorite, FanFanFan, though, so all was ok. Time was spent in the beer area, and I skipped most of DAF as I'd seen them before, but Korn turned out to be a very pleasant surprise on the main stage, and provided myself and Hanne with more than enough material for hours of drunken conversation on the balcony of our cabin back at the camping grounds.

All in all, a brilliant festival spent in the company of good people. I was in a very good mood throughout the weekend, and almost have a feeling of having been on speed when I look back on it... which would probably explain the extreme tempo of everything that happened. I think the arrangers will be hard pressed to follow this line-up with anything even remotely as good, but I'm looking forward to see what they come up with for next summer.

"You let me violate you.
You let me desecrate you.
You let me penetrate you.
You let me complicate you."
Nine Inch Nails - Closer (Downward Spiral, 1994)