Another Notodden Blues Festival is over, and this was my 25th anniversary at the festival – easily on my top three list of all of them. The weather was excellent, many tickets sold, the bands and artists were great and I got to meet good friends and acquaintances. What more can you ask for? (Photo above: Steven van Zandt and the Mostar School of Rock.

The festival had a bad year economically last year, and they couldn’t get another year like that without a serious danger if having to shut down. In that perspective it was a great pleasure to see that they had succeeded in many of the changes they instigated this year, and that the result was a much better result. The Notodden Blues Festival is an important festival for the blues and blues related music – not only for Norway, but actually worldwide, too. So now we can look forward to a new festival next year, too.

Here are my photos of the bands I saw and some of the activities at the festival this year.