Lazy me...

Oh yes, I admit I have been really lazy with this blog but as the summer is coming to an end, I'll be writing a summary of my festival-packed summer of 2009 in the course of the next couple of days to get this blog rolling again.

Avskjedsdans

Et menneske 2007. Det er vi alle. For en eller annen.


Det er bilder som flimrer over tv-skjermen min. Årets mennesker. De virker som små helter hvis liv har betydning. Det var dem som utrettet noe storslått siste år, som kjempet, gikk god for en, protesterte eller reddet liv. Det var dem som var nøkkelpersoner i den politiske kappestriden eller næringslivets reklameskilt.

Jeg er ikke Angela Merkel som fikk et håndkyss fra den franske presidenten. Aller minst er jeg Hillary Clinton og holder en valgkamptale. Jeg mistet ikke det jeg eier og har i en inferno, kom ikke i havsnød foran en av denne verdens kyster og ikke måtte omgå haglkorn så store som tennisballer.

Jeg er ikke medlem i en ekstraberedskapskommisjon, ikke brannmann eller redningssykeplasser. I livet mitt vill jeg ganske sjelden få mulighet til å redde et menneskes liv. Jeg demonstrerte ikke mot G8-toppmøten, gikk ikke ut på gata for å bevare arbeidsplassen min eller streiket for å få litt høyere lønn. Jeg er ikke buddhistisk og aller minst Dalai Lama, og jeg ble heller ikke fotografert nakent for å protestere mot dyreforsøk eller bresmeltingen. I år var jeg egentlig overhodet ikke ut på gata for å reise meg for eller mot noe.

Jeg handhilste ikke på paven, men heldigvis har jeg heller ikke en datter som blir savnet. Jeg har ikke engang barn! Jeg er ikke fotballverdensmester. Faen, jeg satt ikke engang på stadion da Schalke tapte mot Dortmund og gikk dermed glipp av mesterskapet.
Jeg er ingen terrormistenkt. Jeg greidde ikke å havne i knasten og sitte og drikke champagne der. Jeg er ikke dyrepasseren til Knut eller en av de Tokio Hotel guttene som inntar verden.

Jeg er ingen menneske 2007, synes jeg. Den største nyanskaffelsen min var ikke iPhonen, men nye hodetelefoner for mp3-spilleren min. Jeg stod opp nesten hver dag og tok den ene trikken til universitetet, den andre til jobben. Jeg fant en ny jobb jeg er glad i, forbedret norsken min og var i Norge for første gang. Jeg fant noe nye venner, og de som jeg hadde allerede hatt før fantes det også enda i år. Jeg sørgde over den gamle katten min som døde med nesten 16 år. Jeg diskuterte NPDet, klimaforandringen og barnepasset. Jeg gikk ut, falt dritings ned i senga eller ravde svett ut fra europeiske konserthaller.

Mine årets bilder danser foran øyet mitt. Det er som om de trekker en grense mellom verden og meg. Jeg ser ansiktene til elskete menneskene. Ser glitringen i øynene til venninna mi som holder det nyfødte barnet hennes, hører latteren til vennen min som er så smittsom at jeg småler.

Kikken min faller på skjermen igjen. Innlegget er forbi. Svingingen fra menneskene som forandrer verden er forbi. Men mine bilder er enda der. De vugger meg i verdens takt, viste meg mine menneskene 2007. De som holdt hånden min, moret meg og gikk andre veier med meg. Og de gir meg en følelse - av å være et menneske også, et menneske som er viktigt for de som deler dette livet med meg. Et menneske 2007. Det er vi alle. For en aller annen. Uten å danse på tv-skjermen foran millioner av mennesker.

Hitting the road in 2006...

January
20 Depeche Mode [Düsseldorf, LTU Arena]
21 Depeche Mode [Düsseldorf, LTU Arena]

March
05 Cologne > Helsinki
06 Depeche Mode [Helsinki, Hartwall Areena]
07 Helsinki > Cologne
29 Cologne > Manchester
30 Depeche Mode [Manchester, MEN Arena]
31 Depeche Mode [Birmingham, NEC]

April
01 Day off spent in Stratford-upon-Avon
02 Depeche Mode [London, Wembley Arena]
03 Depeche Mode [London, Wembley Arena]
04 London > Cologne
30 The Prodigy [Dortmund, Westfalenhalle]

June
07 Placebo [Bielefeld, Stadthalle]
09 Cologne > London > Birmingham > Stratford-upon-Avon
10 Midnight Vigil [Falstaffs Experience, Stratford-upon-Avon]
13 Stratford-upon-Avon > Birmingham > London > Cologne

July
11 Cologne > Berlin
12 Depeche Mode [Berlin, Waldbühne]
13 Depeche Mode [Berlin, Waldbühne]
15 Berlin > Cologne

September
30 Cologne > Paris

October
02 Placebo [Paris, Bercy]
03 Placebo [Paris, Bercy]
04 Paris > Cologne

November
30 Placebo [Oberhausen, Köpi-Arena]

December
15 Morrissey [Düsseldorf, Philipshalle]
20 Placebo [Mannheim, SAP-Arena]

Still planning another trip to England around September or October...

Depeche Mode in Helsinki 2/2

Helsinki, 06-03-2006, 2:16 pm
It has been snowing all day, so I did not walk around that much. I should have brought my Rangers boots instead of my Adidas trainers.
The air here makes me so tired again, and I will have a catnap in a minute. I think I will not leave the house again before heading off to Hartwall Areena for the Mode tonight.

Helsinki, 07-03-2006, 12:43 pm
I am at Helsinki airport already where I am having a coffee and some sort of tasty Finnish cinnamon cookie. MTV Germany is running on a TV screen, and - lucky me - Depeche Mode's absolutely brilliant "Suffer well" video was shown a couple of minutes ago.
Jaana woke me up yesterday to tell me she had got herself a ticket for the Depeche Mode gig. In the evening we took the train to Pasila and reached Hartwall Areena by 7:30.
At the entrance there were two girls distributing leaflets for Fans United, and they were talking to each other in German. I was very surprised and said, 'Oh, some more Germans!' One of the two replied with an Austrian accent, 'Unfortunately, these Germans can't be prevented from going anywhere.' I could not believe my ears! Jaana grabbed my arm, dragged me away and asked me to ignore her before I could insult that ugly scarecrow.
Jaana and I did not have seats next to each other as we had bought our tickets seperately, so we made the Otto bar near the entrance our meeting point.
I had a superb seat very close to the stage as the arena was rather small (12,000 people). Even though they had been letting people in since 6:30, the standing area in front of the stage was still quite empty. Only the first 3 rows had been occupied so far, and there was still lots of empty space along the catwalk.
When The Bravery started their show at 8, the arena was still more than half-empty. The band was given a warm welcome. However, the crowd was not too enthusiastic. The singer's movement's always make me laugh because his wobbly legs seem to lead a life of their own.
After The Bravery had finished their performance, I went out to the bars to look for the smoking area - bit there was none. Smokers had to leave leave the building and were granted some space outside in the cold. While I was freezing my butt off (I had left my winter coat on my seat), I called Marcel to give him a slight impression of what had happend so far and to tell him about that Austrian bitch (I still haven't calmed down!).
9 pm > Showtime for DEPECHE MODE! The show kicked off with 'A Pain that I'm used to' followed by the breath-taking 'John the Revelator'.
Unfortunately, there was hardly any crowd response. 'A Question of Time', 'Policy of Truth' and 'Precious' (the live intro is so beautiful *sigh*) went down quite well, and 'Walking in my Shoes' broke the ice completely.
I called Marcel again when Martin was singing 'Damaged People', 'Home' (the crowd went wild as the word koti - Finnish for home - appeared on the DM globe) and 'Shake the Disease', the latter being a piano version similar to the one he had performed during his solo tour in 2003. He has changed his hair since the Dusseldorf shows in January. It is bleached now, almost white, and a bit shorter than before. When he took off his black woolen mohican hat while singing 'Home', his hair was all shaggy, and he looked really cute - as long as the cameras did not catch his worn-out face too closely. *lol*

High up in the sky, 3:30 pm
To sum it up, the show was great, and even Peter Gordeno made me burst into laughter when he suddenly started to beat-box during 'Just can't get enough', and Martin was in hysterics as well.
When Dave introduced 'Mr Andrew John Fletcher' in the course of 'World in my Eyes', the cameramen decided to tease Fletch and, thus, focused on him for ages so that he appeared on the video screens for a real long time, and it was obvious that he did not feel comfortable at all, so he gave them signs to take the cameras off him which was ignored, of course. :D
Jaana was on cloud 9 when I met her after the show, and she told me she had fallen in love with Martin. *lol* She is not a DM fan but got to know some songs through her ex who was a massive fan. However, she has always loved Martin's 'In a Manner of Speaking' and listens to the song every night before falling asleep and every morning at work.
We decided not to go to the after show party at Club Ooppera as there had been only so few people at the warm-up. We had a coffee at McDonald's on Mannerheimintie and then went straight on to the hostel.
As we were not tired at all, we opened a bottle of cheap white wine. At the lockers we got to know a guy from Gothenburg, Sweden who attended all of Depeche Mode's Scandinavian gigs. [The whole hostel was flooded with people wearing DM shirts that day. *g*] We talked for hours, but by 3:30 in the morning I got pretty tired and went to bed. Jaana followed me 3 hours later.
Check-out time was 11 am this morning, so I had plenty of time to pack my bags. However, I forgot my towels at the hostel. *lol* Thou shalt not talk to people whilst packing your suitcase. *g*

[BTW: 'Macro' is the perfect song when flying over the clouds!]

Oh, I met Mikko, my Finnish lecturer, at Helsinki airport. *lol* He had arrived on the plane I was flying back with.

The End...

Depeche Mode in Helsinki 1/2

I've just returned from Helsinki, and here's what I wrote down in my travel journal:

Helsinki, 05-03-2006, 8:40 pm
I got up at 4 am because I never manage to pack my suitcase in advance, so things usually very hectic on the day of departure, but this time I arrived at Cologne/Bonn very much on time and was handed over boarding pass number 3 at the Germanwings check-in desk.
Boarding started at 8:40, and the aircraft took off at 9:10 on time. As usual I fell asleep on the plane. I woke up once when the pilot announced we were flying over Malm, Sweden. There were no clouds in the sky, so the Swedish coast was visible, and it looked really beautiful.
The plane landed on schedule at 12:30, I got my luggage back very quickly, and the Finnair bus (the fastest connection to central Helsinki) had already been waiting in front of the airport building.
Half an hour later we reached the central railway station. I took tram 3T to Erottaja, and from there it was only a short walk to Erottajanpuisto hostel. Even though it's much colder here than in Germany, the air is dryer, so you won't start freezing that easily.
Two of my three room mates are lovely: Jaana, a Fenno-German girl from the Heidelberg area and a Russian girl who has lived in Hanover for 7 years. Jaana wants to try to get tickets for the Depeche Mode show at the box office tomorrow. Some Finnish people said the concert was not sold out, so she might be lucky.
The other girl we are sharing the room with is sort of strange because she does not say a single word. I spotted a HIM shirt on her bed. Any HIM accessory reminds me of several weird encounters with a terribly drunk Ville Valo in pubs in the Erottaja area when I was in Helsinki for New Year's Eve 2004/5.
This afternoon I finally managed to pay a visit to the temppeliaukio church, a small church built into a rock with a dome of glass and copper wire. Generally I do not like churches, but this one is really beautiful. It is often used for classical concerts because of its brilliant acoustics.
Afterwards, I got back to the hostel to relax a little and to continue to read the second Harry Potter volume. As I got very tired while reading, I set the alarm function of my mobile to 8 pm just in case I might fall asleep.
Writing this down, I'm sitting in a pub called OuJee where the official Depeche Mode warm-up party is taking place. However, the party here is different and cannot be compared to any DM party in Germany I have been to (and I have been to a lot). People are sitting at their tables chatting. No one is dancing. Apart from me, there are only 10 people 2 bartenders the DJ. The DJ is brilliant! He is working with an Apple laptop (which reminded me of Mr Liam Howlett) and a record player.
Some of my favourite songs have already been played: Strangelove, Rush, Get the Balance right).
The bartender just came up to me with 4 Depeche Mode albums (Music for the Masses, Black Celebration, A broken Frame, Construction Time again) and asked me which one I liked best. I pointed at Music for the Masses, of course, and he wanted to give the cd to me. So I told him I had got it already. Then he asked me to choose another one but I do have all Depeche Mode albums. That really seemed to surprise him. Hey, I am a fan! :o)
A couple of minutes later the bartender returned and gave me a drink. I do not know what it is. 'Kaskenkorva - Karpalo' is written on the bottle. I will find out as soon as I have finished my beer. I am not a beer drinker at all but for me Finnish beer is the best beer in the world, so I drink it everytime I am there.
There are about 15 people now, and 'Fly on the Windscreen' is being played...
I've tried the drink unknown to me, but I still do not really know what it is. I assume it is a kind of cranberry-flavoured vodka. The bottle itself does not reveal anything.
'Shine' is being played right now, the only song from the Exciter album I can take. Come on, give me 'John the Revelator' and 'Macro'! :D
And the bartender again... He wanted me to choose between Songs of Faith and Devotion and Violator. *lol*
And once again: He offered me a mouse mat bearing the graphics of the Playing the Angel booklet, and this time I could not but gratefully accept it. :o)

Route 66 [Beatmaster's Mix]... Yeah! :D
Halo... Nah! :oS
Lillian... *headbang* Two people are dancing!
A boom-boom techno mix of 'Dream on'... That does not appeal to me at all.
Precious... Pure beauty! I love the Angels with silver wings shouldn't know suffering bit. :o)
Useless... The title speaks for itself... *g*
Shake the Disease... Old school stuff is always more than welcome to me! :o) This reminds me of the fact that I would love to hear 'Ice Machine' now.
Suffer well... Crappy without the gorgeous video by Anton Corbijn (the return of 'Devotional Dave' *drool*).
I feel loved... Another horrible Exciter song! However, there's a piano version of this song which is breath-taking. I once had it on my computer but lost it somehow unfortunately. :o(
Shake the Disease... A different mix which is not bad at all. Martin's Feel loved part from 'I feel loved' is woven into the song.
I am slightly getting drunk. Otherwise I would not be commenting on every song. *lol*

To be continued...

Summer of Love - Art of the Psychedelic Era

I've just returned from a brilliant exhibition in Frankfurt: Summer of Love - Art of the Psychedelic Era. One of its highlights was definitely Janis Joplin's car which I took a photo of even though it was not allowed. The guard came up to me and asked me to delete the photo and put the camera away. Well, I put the camera back into my bag, but I did not delete the photo.
The exhibition primarily focused on the hippy strongholds in San Francisco, New York and London by granting each city a huge photo section dealing with local events of the time. It was great to see what London's Carnaby Street looked like in the late 60s.
Furthermore, lots of space was provided for The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Velvet Underground and The Grateful Dead (I missed The Doors!).
About 15 short films that I liked a lot were shown. One of them was directed by Andy Warhol.
Very strange stuff indeed, but absolutely fascinating!
Another section that I really loved was the walls covered with festival and concert posters from all over the world. I could hardly drag myself away from all these beautiful colours.

However, there were some really weird people... A father telling his son that Woodstock had been a huge concert in England... A couple standing behind me talking...
He: "Who's that? The Grateful Dead? Was that a band?"
She: "Yes."
He: "Dead, too?"
She: "Dunno."

Further items on display were magazine and newspaper articles or their covers. A lot of them were about Timothy Leary and Allen Ginsberg, the former being one of my favourite writers.

Depeche Mode in Düsseldorf

Depeche Mode are back on the road and currently "touring the angel" across Europe. I attended my first two out of at least 7 gigs at Düsseldorf's LTU Arena on 20 and 21 January where the band were performing in front of 50,000 people each night.
As for the setlist, I've been rather disappointed because they play the usual classics again and again which is a bit poor due to the fact that they have songs from 11 albums to offer.
However, it was great to see the guys again, and I'm looking forward to seeing them in Helsinki on 6 March.

Martin singing "Somebody"

Dave and Martin performing "Goodnight Lovers", the very last song of the set, on the catwalk

As expected, merchandise items are expensive (a rip-off to be honest)...
girlie shirt 40€
bag 40€
tour book 15€
4 cups 4x2€ deposit