Musical Memories: Kent

More photos here

My relation to Kent started all the way back in about 1997. I must have heard the single "If you where here /Om du vär her" somewhere and on our class trip to Praha we drove through Sweden. The song somehow summed up the whole feeling of being away from someone you love. I had a long-distance-byfriend at the time, so I really identified with it. On a gass station somewhere in Sweden I bought my first Kent record "Isola". I listened to the cd all the way to Praha and back and was utterly hooked on all the great guitar melodies, the lovely vocal of Jocke and his great lyrics and what I have found out later is that special Kent rhytm. it's the same in all their songs and very very Kent, and makes it good no matter what they do. It's a kind of slow groovy 4/4. Kent later released the album in english and I still can't belive that such a great album can sound that horrible in just another language. No sir, Kent it English does not work at all for me.

In 1999 came Hagnesta Hill with some, if not the, greatest lyrics of Kent. At the same time, I started University and at some point in 2000 I was standing outside the institute of theatre and music and started talking to a girl. In a few minutes we realized that we both loved both Kent and The Wannadies and was utterly thrilled that there were someone else in the world that knew about this great music and loved it at much. This became the foundation of a great friendship that still has a strong flavor of the common love of great music.

I saw Kent for the frist time in this periode somehow... I do not really remember when, and in might even have been later. I was just a few meters awway from the stage and it was great. Mew also did the warm-ups so we also discovered another great rock-band that night. Ah,.. I found it now... May 2002. I also saw them again the same summer when I was at the Quart festival. This turned out to be the greatest year so far when it comes to sucess for Kent in Norway. In October 2002 they actually played the biggst stage in Oslo , Spektrum, for 8000 people. At this time the hype started to kill my Kent-feeling, because half of the people there was just there to sing along with the monster-hits from the album that was released that year "Vapen & Ammunition". I was quite happy when they said "Let's play some old rock'n'roll" and did the song " Kräm". Then you could see all the "new-comers" get shocked and all of us "oldies" jumping violently.

Here is Kräm (it's still one of my favorite songs):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Py9c079V3Dg

That whole hype of 2002 killed my Kent interesst for some time. I just couldn't help it. I know it's very stuck up and posh and anything to not like things when they are to hyped, but I am just like that. When people has to many opinions on what I should think of a certain song or band or cd I can't listen to it... I just have to wait...

So ... I haven't actually really listened to the two latest Kent Albums... The fact that one of the bands to guitarplayers left the band also contributed to me not wanna listen to them because I have always love the guitars of Kent so.. It has been a bit sad, but I just couldn't. About a few weeks ago though my friend sendt me a great link. It was a summer calender of Kent clips from their new studio, so I had to watch, and the more I watch them I realize that I have missed them, so now I think it's about time to really dig into those two last albums that I haven't really listened to.... I think it might be time now to refind old long lost love... hehe ;)


Om du var här (with english subtitles): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VAKCjZ4AkM

Vinter 02 (One of the greatest music videoes and greatest guitar-tunes of all time): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5uYa8gWs2rE

Kärleken väntar: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=veew6nzWDCU


Kents channel on YouTube where you can see and listen to a lot about them :
http://www.youtube.com/kentchannel

Kent's official homepage : http://www.kent.nu/

Photo from Quart festival

Concert
Originally uploaded by pdrpdr87

How to "steal" a festival!

The last decade the Quart festival has been one of the leading music festivals in Norway. A few weeks ago it was though announced that they had to give it all up due to few sold tickets. Lots of great artists were booked like Kent, Justice, Kings of Leon, Death Cab for Cutie and tons more. For some reason people just didn't buy tickets. I attended the festival twice in 2001 and 2002 (I think?) and it was amazing. It was my first real music experience, so one part of me is really sad to see it go. But I do understand why, I think. When I used to attend people used to come straight from Roskilde festival i Denmark and go on to Quart. The last few years Roskilde has started to host their festival the same weekend as Quart and the effect of that had to be noticed I think. At the same time it kind of feels like the program of Quart is a bit safer now and a bit more boring. The former leader of the festival left and started his own festival Hove a few years back and I think that had a lot of influence. When looking at his festival there are a lot more acts I would like to watch that at Quart.

Anyways... Quart is over... Today though we were hit by some very supriseing and amazing news. A couple of people in Oslo has actually managed to convinced a few of the top acts to come to Oslo instead of Kristiansand and made a festival in the middle of the city in less than 2 weeks. They have the city councils support and will be using an area that these weeks are used for showing the games from the European fotball championship. It's an amazing idea!!! It's so fresh that they haven't got a web page yet and the concerts are in two weeks. It will be very exciting to see what they can do in just two weeks with all the left over artists the scooped up from the Quart festivals program. I understand that the people around other parts of Norway most be really pissed at us, but hey!... finders keepers .. :) I think I might go on Thursday if there are any good bands. Going on a trip with the band from Friday to Sundag :) Sun, sea and music :)

Clip from NRK about the new festival (in Norwegian)