Slottsfjell Festival Tonsberg, Norway 15-17/7/10
4/5
By: Matt Tomiak
With a bill split approximately 50:50 between Anglophone acts and Scandinavian talent, Slottsfjell’s idyllic hilltop location and welcoming patrons bodes well from the very off.
The long-awaited first appearance of some mid-afternoon sun on Thursday occurs during DUM DUM GIRLS’ set, the Californian quarter blending 60s girl group harmonies and punkish urgency, and the weather’s just as balmy during confusingly-named Aussies THE MIDDLE EAST’S beguiling blend of Bon Iver/Sufjan Stevens-style hoedowns on the evocatively named ‘Kastellscenen’ stage.
Over at the main arena we find effervescent Scottish twinkle-popsters BELLE & SEBASTIAN: frontman Stuart Murdoch declares his surroundings “a beautiful scene”, before introducing a “very old song”. ‘The State I Am In’ from 1996’s Tigermilk, thus kicking off a fest-friendly greatest hits run – ‘Step Into My Office, Baby’, ‘Sukie In The Graveyard’ (augmented by Murdoch’s giddy pogoing and air guitaring), ‘Stars Of Track & Field’ and ‘The Boy With The Arab Strap’ all feature. Far from the bookish navel-gazers they’re sometimes branded, tonight underpins the long-standing but often overlooked forthright pop credentials of B&S.
Friday’s ferry trip to the festival site is enlivened as points of interest are discussed by members of the local press, including a new multiplex cinema development apparently spearheaded by ex-Man Utd defender and Tonsberg resident Ronnny Johnsen.
Furthering the links with Old Trafford, and bringing a little slice of SE15 to Slottsfjell, is Grime MC GIGGS, the hotly-tipped, controversy-courting Peckhamite. He’s plugging new LP Let ‘Em Ave It by way of tracks such as ‘Don’t Go There’ and ‘Look What The Cat Dragged In’; the latter a bawdy, Dizzee-ish populist party choon, even going so far as to distribute free taster CDs amongst the first row of the audience. Whilst predictably disparaging of authority figures and haterz in equal measure, there’s an oddly uplifting and enthusiastic quality to his cheery delivery and demeanour.
The appearance of a blue-rinsed, epaulette-clad JULIETTE LEWIS recalls Alan Partridge’s curt appraisal of girlfriend Sonya to assistant Lynne -“she’s mildly cretinous”- but engagingly so, and the movie star-turned- singer is so fond of loopy Hollywood platitudes that her band’s rather flat garage rock doesn’t feel too underwhelming.
The breathy, rickety lo-fi of Yorkshire boy/girl duo SLOW CLUB opens Saturday’s proceedings before a sedentary audience, although the crowd are rather more animated during LISSIE (resembles a fellow Illinois native, Liz Phair, has a charming speaking voice not dissimilar to Lurleen Lumpkin from The Simpsons, plays soulful, starkly confessional alt-country.)
The curtain closes on Slottsfjell 2010 beneath the fuzzy, warm embrace of the obscenely underappreciated Glaswegians TEENAGE FANCLUB, indiepop’s favourite old tartan blanket. Opening with ‘It’s All In My Mind’ , the Fannies progress through a selection of more pensive tracks from this year’s Shadows album and a triumvirate of stone-cold classics – ‘About You’, ‘Ain’t That Enough’, ‘Don’t Look Back’, culminating with gargantuan proto-grunge oldie ‘Everything Flows’.
It’s the perfect way to end three days in truly glorious surroundings. As they say round these parts, Takk!
Artists in this article: The Middle East, Belle & Sebastian, Slow Club, Lissie, Teenage Fanclub, Juliette Lewis
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