The Swing Of Things

The concert in Fredrikstad was unfortunately not of the best of a-ha. The chilling wind must take som credit for that, but I can’t help but “fearing” the stadium-phase of a-ha is taking it’s last calls. Fridays concert could have been brilliant - in a more intimate setting.

The warm up act was a somewhat intriguing choice (rumored to be a suggestion by a-ha itself). Apoptygma Berzerk is a local industrial-techno/heavy metal fusion not very likely to appeal to the average a-ha fan I suppose. Nonetheless they did a good performance in the wind, eager to show off in front of the “home audience”.

The crowd were waiting for the main act though and when the band members started showing up, things started to heat up. Although the mood was generally good, it never really took off until Take On Me - which was song #12 for the night. Musically the band delivered, but Morten in particular seemed quite uninspired to the whole thing. Magne was the one saying anything at all to the audience, Morten refrained from anything but some “Takk skal dere ha” and Paul never said anything. Apart from that, the concert brought some interesting musical parts; I have hardly seen or heard the group this dark and what I would describe as “direct”. Almost gone was the dominating string and synth-parts, hello guitars.

I’ve Been Loosing You; Bringing me directly back to the late 80’s concerts with Pauls solo opening it up. Great rock version, albeit with horrible sound (that was partly corrected during the song). Stay on These Roads followed in an equally surprisingly rocked up version. A monumental Minor Earth Minor Sky the way we really like it went over to a Scoundrel Days that was at least better and stronger than last years incarnation at the Aalesund gig.

I Call Your Name with a piano and no sax (of course) was nice - except it will never be the same after the stunning version they did in Frognerparken 2005. Move to Memphis was blastingly strong with a new arrangement. I’d like to have a recording of this one. Cosy prison quite on the ordinary with the band cooling it a bit down now. For the straightforward Keeper of the flame Paul took over the piano from Magne.

Now, the Lennon song #9 dream sounds great on the Darfur record (buy it!), but it fell through here. As most of Lennon’s songs, it is rather fragile and the band was apparantly not too comfortable with it. What was left, the wind took. Neither did it help that hardly anyone in the audience knew what it was. The same could be said for the next one, but Lamb to the slaughter live was quite a treat for the fans! This was sort of the high point for me; rearranged, even darker and everything. I really hope this one will be released in some way. Excellent!

Ordinary nice versions of Hunting high and low, Take on me, and Crying in the rain followed. And on Summer moved on Morten kept the tone as usual, but actually lost it on the subsequent two refrains. Good grief. He took it with a smile though, and the crowd with humour

The living Daylights is always the winning closer to the ordinary set, and the crowd went wild as you could expect, dancing and singing - and keeping on singing til the guys came back on for the extras.

Analogue is becoming a favourite of mine, but this time I felt it was rather tame. Eventhough surprisingly enough the crowd actually took over the refrain from Morten (I would never have thought). The other high point was to come with Sun always shines on TV. Stunning good and new acoustic opening version. One of the best versions of TSASOT I have ever heard live! To round it off they did as they have a few times lately with cosy Dark is the night.

All in all I had a great time in Fredrikstad. I had some beers in town afterwards as well (it is a nice town to visit also just to party The concert was just about average, but as mentioned; I can see a small decline in the performances. Since the excellent Ullevaal gig (probably a-ha at the best ever), through the Trondheim, Bergen, Aalesund and now Fredrikstad concerts, it seems for each year the intensity of the performance is everso slightly declining. I believe this years concerts will unfortunately be the last we see of a-ha live for a while.

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Pictures from the concert in my Flicker account.

The a-ha interpretion of Lennon’s #9 Dream can be purchased from iTunes (heck, might as well get the whole album - for the sake of the cause).

More about the concert in other places - reviews and images:
NRK (Norwegian Broadcasting)
Dagbladet
Fredrikstad blad

I’ve Been Loosing You
Stay on These Roads
Minor Earth Minor Sky
Scoundrel Days
I Call Your Name
Move to Memphis
Cosy prison
Keeper of the flame
#9 dream
Lamb to the slaughter
Hunting high and low
Take on me
Crying in the rain
Summer moved on
The living Daylights
Analogue
Sun always shines on TV
Dark is the night

iMix of all the songs in iTunes.

Tomorrow a-ha will kick off the first of four 2007 concerts in Fredrikstad. Now, the weather seems to be a little unpredictable - but hopefully it won’t be completely soaked during the concert. Really looking forward to this gig with great anticipation - seems the guys have working on new material also - maybe there will be some hints…

Since the minor earth forum closed, there has been few outlets to hang around lately - so any good suggestions?

With wednesdays glorious Nine Inch Nails gig still lingering somewhere in the spine, the excitement for thursdays rare norwegian appearance of Tool was electrifying. Maynard and the boys delivered for sure. There is only one thing to comment on a totally perfect show - it was half an hour short. Like NIN, it was hardly Tools fault… Since this is happening in the midst of the city sort of, they have to call it quits at 23:00. Oh well. Good thing is, then I am not totally destroyed at work today, but I think my hearing is temporarily impaired…

Trent Reznor is a genius! Nuf said.