Aage Aleksandersen at Rockefeller

Aage Aleksandersen is one of Norway’s best live artists, and he is also one of te artists who have been most on the road and for a longest period. These days he is on a tour in Norway, and tonight he played at the Rockefeller Music Hall in Oslo.

I saw Aage Aleksandersen and Sambandet at the Steinkjer Festival in late June, and you can read about it and see the pictures from that concert here. That was certainly a great concert, but there is something special about a club concert compared to an outdoor festival. You get closer to the artist, everything is more intense, and the musicians tend to give that little extra.

Tonight was no exception. The band, Sambandet, count the former drummer Steinar Krogstad of Stage Dolls, the former bassist Morty Black from TNT, the former keyboardist Terje Tranaas from D.D.E., Skjalg Raaen and Gunnar Pedersen on guitar and Bjorn Rostad on sax. Aage Aleksandersen is a very democratic band leader, letting his musicians in front while he often stands in the background. There is no doubt who is the boss, though.

The first time I saw Aage Aleksandersen live was in 1970 when his band Prudence still hadn’t broken through. I remember a band with lots of energy, that played covers of Jethro Tull, Dee Purple and also some zydeco inspired songs.

Prudence became popular from their first LP, Tomorrow May Be Vanished in 1972. By then they had started writing all their songs themselves. The main songwriter was Aage Aleksandersen, and he kept up his songwriting when he went solo after Prudence broke up in 1975.

The concert at Rockefeller was a mix of old songs like Fire Pils og en Pizza (4 beers and a pizza), Lys og varme (Light and warmth), plus new ones like Total Kapitulasjon (Total Capitulation) and many others. The audience was grown up, but with a wide age mix.Many of Aage’s songs are part of the standard songs that Norwegian know, and there was sing-a-long from the first song. The club was sold out with 1300 eager fans. When I left after one and a half hour, everyone looked very happy.