Spandex Appears At By:Larm's Last Night

Various venues

Oslo, Norway

on Feb 22 2009

Aaron Brophy (CHARTattack)

02/23/2009 5:05pm

By:Larm's Saturday schedule was ushered in with waves of sleety snow seemingly designed to specifically make festival-goers fall and break something on downtown Oslo's treacherously icy sidewalks.

Indeed, throughout the weekend I would see a disproportionate number of young adults at the clubs on crutches or limping or otherwise mobility-challenged from what I can only guess was slipping on shit (I witnessed loads of pedestrian wobbles and wipeouts), "gettin' extreme" (it appears everyone in Norway either skis, mountain climbs or does some other crazier shit) or there was a polio epidemic. Pretty much every panhandler had a crutch, too.

I made it out to walk around in the daylight for the first time while at the festival. There were 7-11s everywhere — same with McDonald's and public outdoor ice skating rinks filled with pre-teens and their moms gliding along to the Eminem and Ghostface that blared out of the P.A. system.

Nobody there is fat and just about every woman is a hot blonde with a certain style and Nordic attractiveness. It becomes decreasingly special when you're surrounded by it, though.

I started the rock 'n' roll in the same place I began night one: Mono. I learned the place has a bit of lore to it in that they adhere to a strict no VIP, no jumping-the-line policy and they take great pride in having forced members of The Strokes and Franz Ferdinand to wait fairly before getting in. There was no lineup to to see Simon Says No! (3.5/5), but it was still cozy inside.

It was pretty easy to triangulate what's going on: Joy Division, Creation Records and Interpol. I was fine with it, and the boys played their gloomy little hearts out. The lead singer took his role seriously and did a solid head-down mumble and sway throughout the set. I swear I even saw him spit on the guitarist's back when he jumped on a monitor in what was perhaps too cliché a rock move.

New Violators (2/5) were next at Sentrum Scene, but if there was any violating going on it was happening to my ears and eyes. The Violators frontman looked like Bryan Adams and was thrusting himself and his uncomfortably tight white jeans all over the place while he played.

The music wasn't much better, as the influence of Norway's favourite sons A-Ha reared its head once again into a noxious slurry of new new wave and stabs at dance-pop-rock that were too soft around the edges. I decided to jet after half-a-dozen songs.

I figured I'd use my early escape to catch the last 15 minutes of Rockettothesky's set at Stratos. I had seen them on day one and loved them, and figured this might be my last chance to ever see them again.

Except, in what was a recurring theme for me all weekend, I couldn't find Stratos. I decided to cut my losses and headed to the giant beer tent venue Dagbladet Teltet to see The Captain & Me (3.5/5).

The band have been tagged "Balkan country," which means nothing to me. That said, with the right booking agent I'm convinced these guys could do a massive killing on the art grant-subsidized and ethno-cultural music festival scene. Mostly though, I was just killing time for half an hour because I had nothing "must see" in that block of time. I'm glad I stuck around, though, because their set-closer "There Is No Tomorrow" was an absolute epic drinking song that instantly made me thirsty and propelled them higher in my eyes.

It was back to the multi-room Oslo Kongressenter to see what that venue might yield. Unfortunately, the booking seemed to lean towards the basest of populist teenie music trends while I was there.

Pipedream (2.5/5) were the first band I saw at the Kongressenter Auditoriet and their existence mostly proved that Jimmy Eat World's influence ranged farther and wider than the sponsored stages of the Warped Tour.

Next up was a great revelation. Looking at the program guide, I realized there were four rooms in the Kongressenter, not three. For those who've just joined us, on day one I knew there were three different venues in the building, but I could only find two of them. There it was, tucked in a corner of the building: the Christianiasalen room. I had unlocked one of the keys.

The face of this revelation was the insipid dance-pop bleating of Denmark's Small (2.5/5). One of the numbers featured the singer going "I'm a radio" over and over. I'd have rather had the static at the end of the dial.

I resolved to find this mythical fourth room. I wandered around all over the place and even asked the security guards who'd just pointed me back up to the Auditoriet. It turns out there was no fourth room. The Oslo Kongressenter Auditoriet and Olso Kongressenter Oslosalen were the same fucking room. It was just a quirk in how the schedules were printed in the festival pocket guide that had me so confused.

The all-girl pop band Norma Sass (3/5) were playing in the Auditoriet/Oslosalen. The flowers on their microphone stands and around the stage made for a nice touch of dress-up in a festival that had been remarkably light on theatrics so far. And then there was the song that sounded like it was about Jesus. That's not to say songs about Jesus are bad. There've been some great ones over the years. But I was fairly certain that the band I had misprojected as being a cute Go-Gos/Abba blend were potentially Amy Grant posse members instead.

At least Neverstore (3/5) in the Auditoriet had some spunk. They were the sort of perfectly pro pop-punk act that you would have sworn that Greig Nori had slathered them in Vaseline before they hit the stage. Sadly, judging by the middling attendance, pop-punk ain't where it's at in Oslo.

It was time to blow this lemonade stand. It was off to Revolver, where I had the misfortune of stumbling upon an experimental ambient noise showcase the night before.

I was particularly excited to check out Professor Pez (3/5) for no other reason than they cited Eric's Trip amongst their influences. Since I had already bailed on the chance to see an act called Girl From Saskatoon, this might be as close to Canuck rock as I'd get. As an added bonus, I figured out there was a second room in the building with other bands. I just had to find it.

The tiny main floor of Revolver was uber-packed for Pez. So packed, in fact, that I had to stand in the hallway and only got to see occasional flashes of a red trucker hat on stage that was presumably the top of the singer's head. There was also a trumpeter playing along somewhere, but I had no idea where. This was no way to watch a band, so I was out.

It turned out that the other room at Revolver was in the basement, which you had to leave the venue via the back door and go down some old cement stairs to get to. Down there playing their hearts out were Hypertext (4.5/5), and they were definitely the find of the night.

If anyone was taking a page from Canadians, it was these guys. Somewhere between a cleaner sounding Mystery Machine and a more controlled The Mark Inside, these guys' slightly mathy rock 'n' roll was fortifying after the tepid offerings at the Kongressenter.

I stuck it out for the full Hypertext set before heading to Sentrum Scene for The Whitest Boy Alive (3.5/5) and what would be the first and only massive lineup and delay I'd experience getting into a venue all festival.

There was good reason, too. The Sentrum was body-crushingly packed for the dream pop of Kings Of Convenience member Erlend Oye's other band. Whitey have more pep than the wussness of Convenience, but they come by their name honestly. This was pretty much the most vanilla indie dance pop the imagination could conjure up. I made it about three-quarters of the way through the set, but had to jet because I had a very, very important date to make at John Dee.

Before I got to Dee, though, I stopped in at Rockefeller next door for a one-song quick hit of Tommy Tokyo & Starving For My Gravy (3/5). This was mostly to say that I saw a band called Starving For My Gravy. If anything, Tommy hasn't lacked any gravy. I don't remember any of the song the band played, but in my notes I wrote, "Tommy looks like a fat lumberjack who had a makeover."

Onward to John Dee for the special treat. I figured if I was going to fly all the way to Norway for a music festival, I sure wasn't going to miss the opportunity to check out some of that true church-burnin', dragon-fightin' motherfuckin' metal action, and my choice was Iskald (4/5).

To be fair, the band seemed more on the Slayer tip and well-adjusted enough that they wouldn't eat each other's brains, but still. Metal! There was lots of grunting, hair down to guys' asses and headbanging. Best of all, one song started with a lengthy sample of a sword fight. While it was playing, some tall, skinny and decidedly un-metal looking dude was running around the audience pretending he was slashing things like he was in the sword fight. Fucking awesome.

My By:Larm experience was fast coming to a close, so it was now about squeezing out the last few drops of wicked.

I headed back to the Dagbladet Teltet Annex to see the electro-party I fell a little in love with the night before, The Wong Boys. I wanted to see how my new favourite song, "Git Ur Fuk On," would work in front of 600 as opposed to the 60 people I saw them play to in a basement.

It turned out Oslo wasn't quite ready for the Boys, who probably only scared up about 50 wild party people to the front of the stage to get their freak on. No matter. They're still awesome and that song — think of it as what would happen if Peaches remixed "Crazy Frog" — is a true anthem.

I was ready to call it. The night was done. There was only one more band playing at the Dagbladet Teltet stage, WhoMadeWho, from Denmark.

I had no real need to see what I thought would be an AC/DC cover band, but I figured I'd at least read their bio before I decided to leave. Their write-up compared them to ELO, Blur and Human League. It was an odd combo, but I still wasn't sold... until I saw it.

Spandex.

The band were on stage setting up their gear and they were in spandex.

Sold.

It turned out the three-piece prog party machine WhoMadeWho (4/5) were more Supertramp-meets-Chic than Blur-plus-Human League, but they were solidly entertaining. Their bass player was a bad-ass and I can only imagine the heartbreak Eagles Of Death Metal's Jesse Hughes will suffer when he discovers these guys and realizes his dream of "disco metal" has already been done.

With that my By:Larm 2009 experience came to a close. I had just whirlwinded to Oslo for three days and came out richer for it. I could've done with less of the fey dance-pop and more true turbulence of the soul. Most of the acts I didn't enjoy seemed like they've literally never experienced anything less than comfortable lives, but there's definitely some riches to be heard here.