Norway have many great artists, and every once and again a new one arrives who has that special thing that makes her or him stand out from the crowd. John Olav Nilsen is one of those, and he was immediately recognized, even before he released his debut CD in 2009. Since then he has played many concerts with his band, Gjengen, and their third CD, Den eneste veien ut (The Only Way Out) is out now.
Seigmen was one of Norway’s leading rock bands in the 90’s. They were supposed to follow up the heritage from the four big ones, Dum Dum Boys, De Lillos, Raga Rockers and Jokke og Valentinerne. But they disbanded in 1998 after a 9 year carreer. Luckily they have had many comebacks after that, and one of them was tonight.
Paal Angelskaar was the songwriter and singer in the Norwegian band Minor Majority. Ten years after they started out he releases his first solo CD, Follow Me. Wednesday he held the release concert at the Rockefeller Music hall in Norway.
Beth Hart has been around the block and knows more about the darker sides of life than many of us will ever know. Lucky for her, she has survived and overcome her problems. That’s good for her, and good for her audience. As a performer, she knows what the audience like, and combines this with a high quality music performance. In October she releases a new CD, Bang Bang Boom Boom.
Norway have many musical legends, both internationally and nationally known. Bugge Wesseltoft is one of our internationally best known musicians, while Geir Wentzel definitely should have been. Thursday night these two and a handful of Norway’s best musicians through the last 40 years plus one Swede played together in Oslo at the arrangement The Organ Club. (The picture: Bugge Wesseltoft and Sveinung Hovensjoe)
This year’s Blues In Hell is over, and it has been a great two days with good artists, good blues and friendly people from all over Norway. The festival is held some 20 miles east of Trondheim at a place called Hell, which means a shallow cave in old Norwegian. The headliners at the festival were The Original Blues Brothers, Johnny Hoy, Tommy Castro, Vidar Busk, Roy Rogers and Rory Block. (Above: Johnny Hoy and The Bluefish)
This weekend the Blues in Hell festival is happening at Hell, a place in Stjoerdal, close Trondheim in Norway. This is the fifth year for the festival, and in my opinion it is one of the best and most charming blues festivals in Norway. This year The Original Blues Brothers, Rory Block, Alvin Youngblood and Tommy Castro are some of the headliners. (The picture shows Big Jay from the 2009 festival)
Granittrock is something as unusual as a free, non-alcoholic festival in Oslo, where some of Norway’s best and biggest bands play. The festival was arranged Friday and Saturday this weekend, and I was there on Friday.
Artist Pictures Blog 