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| Festival on the rocks First Spitsbergen Rock brings seven bands to indoor and outdoor stages June 11-14
Åsmund Prytz's band seized an invitation to play in the inaugural Spitsbergen Rock festival without the usual debate, but one of their stage trademarks may be hard to deliver. Prytz's band, Nullskattesnylterne, is one of seven performing on indoor and outdoor stages during the world's northernmost rock festival June 11-14. Line Vangen Roksøy, the festival's spokesperson, said organizers began working on it about a year ago at the urging of festival leader Kristian Arnesen. "He had been thinking about this for a long time because we already have a jazz festival and a blues festival, but for a lot of the young people it's all rock and roll," she said. Featured events include an open-stage jam with some of the festival's musicians at 9 p.m. June 11 at Svalbar, concerts at Svalbar and Barentz Pub starting at 9 p.m. June 12, a five-band outdoor concert at Endalen beginning at 6 p.m. June 13, and a jam and "foretaste of next year's festival" at 8 p.m. June 13 at Barentz Pub. Most of the bands come from the mainland with major awards and album sales to their credit, and vary in tone from hardcore to bluegrass/punk. "At first it was more like the harder rock, Norwegian thrash, but we figured to outreach we needed something that would grab a bigger number of people's interests because we're not that many people here," Roksøy said. Getting top billing is the Oslo-based Superfamily, winner of a "best live band" award at the 2007 Alarmprisen festival and a Norwegian grammy for their 2007 album Warszawa. Lead singer Steven Wilson said the novelty of Svalbard made the band quick to accept their first invitation to perform the outdoor concert finale, but those at the concert will get something novel as well. "Another thing that's quite good about playing in a place as remote as Svalbard is it gives us a unique opportunity to test out some new song material," he said. "We are releasing a new record in August and Svalbard will be the first gig we try out some new songs." Previous Superfamily works have been promoted by the band's label as everything from "one of the most radio un-friendly songs ever recorded" to "belongs on the closing credits of an '80s John Hughes movie, where the popular guy dumps the beauty queen for the screwed-up girl who he then takes to the prom." Asked to describe the new album, Wilson said it's "perhaps a little bit more darker than the previous albums we have done – very orchestral, very big, sort of going for the 'more is more' approach." Wilson said his band will also be making a few stage deviations for Spitsbergen Rock, although nothing they haven't had to do playing other northern places where the sun doesn't go down. "The light show goes poorly," he said. "You have sort of a Spinal Tap moment where you have lights going off and nobody's seeing it." The site of Saturday's outdoor concerts, about 10 km outside Longyearbyen at Mine 5, was selected "so you get the hard, rocky nature with the hard rock and roll," Roksøy said. That also was the hardest part of arranging the festival, since timing and permits had to ensure it wouldn't disturb collection of geological samples taking place at the site. "We were worried about a lot of things, but somehow everything came out fine," she said. Tickets, available in advance at Svalbar and the festival's site (www.spitsbergenrock.no), are 400 NOK for Friday, 500 NOK for Saturday and 700 NOK for both days. There is unlimited space for admission to Saturday's concerts, with a free bus departing from Svalbar at 5:45 p.m. A grill with seafood, burgers and sausages opens at 6 p.m., with concerts scheduled from 7 p.m. until about 1 a.m. Saturday also features a youth concert by the girls' punk band Cyaneed at 7 p.m. at Ungdomshuset. Space at Friday's concerts are limited to 200 for each venue. Svalbar will feature Sandnes hard-rock band Ingenting at 9 p.m. and Kristiansan bluegrass/punk band Figur Flint at 11 p.m., while Barentz Pub hosts Nullskattesnylterne at 10:30 p.m. and Kvinesdal comedy/rock band Luxus Leverpostei at midnight. "We know people on Svalbard are always slow to buy tickets," but it won't just be locals rocking out, Roksøy said. "Some of the bands have their own fan clubs and they are coming up just for this weekend, which is awesome." |
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