Just like T Bone Burnett, David Byrne also uses his time and position for other causes than music and film. David Byrne’s project is called Reasons To Be Cheerful, and is a multi media project dealing with different social issues, like education, health, climate, energy, etc. At SXSW he held an engaged and exciting speech on the convergence day about his project.
Every year some famous artist or music personality holds a keynote when the music part of SXSW starts. This year the keynote was held by producer, artist, film maker and ten times Grammy, plus Oscar winning T Bone Burnett as part of the Convergence day, with seminars ans talks for both Music, Film and Interactive delegates. Unlike many of the former keynotes I have heard, he didn’t speak about music at all, but it was at the same time on of the best keynotes I have heard during more than twenty years at SXSW.
At last I am back in Austin, and the first and second night here I saw four great bands at three of my favorite clubs, The Continental Club, The Saxon Pub and The One-2-One Bar. The clubs are all situated in South Austin, which is also my favorite area. (Photo above: Chuck Prophet)
Bylarm is the Norwegian showcase festival with a Nordic and international focus. The first festival was arranged in 1998, so this years edition was the twenty second. The mix between seminars and showcases is well tested from festivals like SXSW, and it works well for Bylarm, too. (Photo above: brenn.)
Trondheim Calling will be 10 year next year, and is one of four showcase festivals in Norway, including byL:arm, Sørveiv and Vill Vill Vest. Of these, Trondheim Calling is a good runner up compared to the “old” by:Larm, which has been going on since 1998.This was my fourth Trondheim Calling since 2016, and here are the bands I saw at the festival. (Photo above: Biru Baby) Continue reading
The second half of my favorite photos from 2018 are also taken at different venues and at different times of day. When photographing concerts there are many things to consider, and light or absence of light being maybe the most important. Then there are different degrees of action – some artists jump around, while others ars just standing still. But this makes it even more interesting, no concerts are exactly alike.
This year has also been a good year for concert photography. I have attended eleven festivals and forty five different concerts, totaling more than two hundred and eighty concerts altogether. The concerts have been a good mix of styles, from different sub-genres in metal, through pop, rock, singer songwriter to Serbian pop and Argentinian tango. Here is the first batch of my own personal favorites from 2018.
We all have a soundtrack to our lives, usually the music we heard when we grew up, from when we were around thirteen to twenty years old. Some are more conscious about this soundtrack, others less. It all depends on if we were hung up on music, sports, girls/boys, etc. And some of the artists we heard at that time follow us the rest of our life. Last night I saw one of the contributors to my own soundtrack.
The Blues in Hell Festival has been a yearly tradition for me since the mid 90’s. The festival is held at Hell, a small place by the airport outside of Trondheim, Norway, and except for three years when it was called Hell Music Fest and the repertoar was pop/rock/hip hop, the festival has been true to the blues roots all the time. Being a smaller festival, they have also presented interesting and great artists a bit outside of the most commercial ones. (Photo above: The winner of the Blues in Hell Award, Jan Erik Moe)
The National Opera in Oslo is a spectacular building located by the seaside in Oslo. The outside and roof of the building is built in a way that makes it perfect as a live music venue. The stage is located on a barge, and people sit or stand on the marble roof of the opera house, all the way down to the water. Yesterday I was photographing a concert there with some of the best and most popular Norwegian artists. (Photo above: Ane Brun)
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