The Scandinavian festival season’s well under way, and May 20-22 ALL SCANDINAVIAN swung by SPOT Festival in Aarhus, Denmark, to catch a whiff of the Nordic live scene right now. A showcase festival with an increased focus on all countries in the region, SPOT is a great opportunity to explore what’s big locally and potentially could be internationally – and the potential is massive in our humble opinion. On top the combination of great venues with excellent sound and all within walking distance of each other is a winner.

The latter, however, isn’t a guarantee to catch everything ticked on the schedule, and as it’s been with every festival a lot was missed for various reasons (scheduling conflicts, limited venue capacity, pissing about in the sun among others). So, our apologies to you and not least the acts concerned – hope to catch you live some other time soon.

Anyway, here are the short recounts of the gigs we did catch:

Amanda Jenssen (SE) (Photo)
She’s taken her native Sweden by storm with her two albums, ‘Killing My Darlings’ (2008) and ‘Happyland’ (2010), and Thursday night at the grand SPOT opening she almost did the same to the 1600 capacity main venue. Almost, because there really is nothing deader than an audience sitting down. However, Amanda Jenssen and her great band did what they should and could with their very effective mix of 1950s R’n’R and the swinging 20s, spearheaded by brilliant single ‘Happyland’.

Slaraffenklang (DK)
Repeating the success of a concert in the Royal Danish Playhouse in January, Slaraffenklang – the Slaraffenland and Efterklang hybrid – were the main attraction of the official opening event. Covering each other, sharing songs equally between them and doing Slaraffenland/Efterklang mash-ups it was at best brilliant, at worst interesting, but always entertaining. Not least as the 10 people on stage seemed to have the time of their life. Slaraffenklang have no intentions of being a band as such, but they have made two free EPs, latest ‘Prinser & Vikinger’ (“Princes & Vikings”) with five live songs from the January concert which you can download here!

Little yeLLs AloT (DK)
A bit more contact with the audience wouldn’t have hurt, but Little yeLLs AloT did a grand job opening the outside stage Officerspladsen Friday afternoon, presenting their debut album ‘Wintertan Interfear’. Aggressive energy is the driving force of their Nirvana/Soundgarden styled rock bringing back sweet memories and a slightly disturbing urge to dig out the old Dr. Martens.

Dødning (DK)
Combining metal, punk, stoner and classic rock with bits of Rhodes organ added for good measure Copenhagen six-piece Dødning kicked off the metal part of this year’s festival. With everything cranked to 11 (including especially singers Mikkel Wad Larsen and Aske Kristiansen) they aimed straight for the groin with massive riffs, and although effective in that respect and well executed they could do with more variation between songs (and skip political “ballad” ‘Dogs Of War’ altogether).

Pony The Pirate (NO)
Every festival have wrong or at least oddly placed bands, one being Norwegian eight-piece Pony The Pirate. Even though they’re unknown to most they’d been placed in the main venue which resulted in a very empty looking room. Really a shame, because although they gave it their everything, their grandiose indiepop could’ve done so much better on a smaller stage.

Plök (DK)
Danish quartet Plök released their debut album ‘Sing Us Yr Guillotine Gospel’ back in February and on SPOT they delivered their awesome mathrock/artrock combo with plenty of high frequency shredding not unlike New York’s Battles with impressive skill. (LLJ)

Lars And The Hands Of Light (DK)
As you might have picked up, the sun was shining during SPOT and it was indeed a perfect backdrop to Lars And The Hands Of Light’s pleasing songs spanning 40 years of pop music with an excellent peak in instant hit single ‘Me Me Me’ from the debut album ‘The Looking Glass’.

Kill Screen Music (DK)
These Danes deliver high octane power-pop with a catchiness that was spot-on 10-15 years ago. However, with a surefire powerhouse hit like ‘Traffic’ Kill Screen Music might just charm themselves in to the grey zone between the Muse and Coldplay fan bases. (LLJ)

Jonathan Johansson (SE)
This is the third time ALL SCANDINAVIAN catches Jonathan Johansson live within a month and a half, and he is simply impeccable on stage. He managed to fill most of the seats in the main venue with his otherworldly and spiritual pop masterpieces. And having heard the set’s brand new songs three times now, there’s no sign of him losing his magic. (LLJ)

Kellermensch (DK)
Regular readers of this blog will know that we like Danish dark rockers Kellermensch. A lot. At SPOT Festival last year they totally blew my mind with an incredibly intense concert. I’ve seen them live a couple of times since, and although always great they haven’t hit me like that again. Until this gig. It was simply spectacular…

Surf In Stereo (DK)
Kicking off the Saturday young trio Surf In Stereo carved a big smile on my face with their jazz-prog-surf combo. Energetic, skilled and sporting the happiest guitar player I’ve seen in a while in Kasper Ejlerskov Leonhardt. Charming and really good fun.

Betting On The Mouse (DK)
Back in January we featured Betting On The Mouse in the SpaceScan series, capturing us with their enticing and highly melancholic mixture of folk, pop, jazz, electro and noise with an expressive ace in principal songwriter and singer Martha Marie Skou. I didn’t get completely wrapped up in it live, but that had most to do with me being in a good mood and not wanting to let that go.

Shogun Kunitoki (SF)
What I did get wrapped up in was Shogun Kunitoki and their bracingly psychedelic, analogue electro with a live drummer and a percussionist/movie operator handling Super 8 visuals. It really was a treat and they had deserved a larger (and more baked) audience. The Finnish quartet have released one album ‘Tasankokaiku’ (2006), which took them eight years to complete, so by my count we’re about halfway to a followup – an album I will begin to look forward to.

Underwater Sleeping Society (SF)
Finnish art-rock/indiepop six-piece Underwater Sleeping Society have been with us almost since the beginning of ALL SCANDINAVIAN with their third and great full length ‘The Dead Vegas’ (2008) which also carried the bulk of the set-list this Saturday. It did seem a little like the meager turnout got to the Finns (can’t really blame them), but it was nonetheless a solid set and not a finger is to be put on their execution.

Moto Boy (SE)
Sweden’s own Moto Boy aka Oskar Humlebo served up one of SPOT Festival’s most compelling performances. With a low hanging Flying V-guitar and flanked by a violin and cello player, Moto Boy charmed his way into our hearts with his ethereal and angelic chamber pop, led on by his fabulous falsetto not heard as beautiful this side of Jeff Buckley. (LLJ)

Turboweekend (DK)
Easily one of the best Danish live bands right now and carrying a full set of nothing but hits (and this with only two albums under their belts), Turboweekend had a completely packed main venue in ecstasy as Saturday turned Sunday, in no small part thanks to an impressively energetic singer Silas Bjerregaard. That guy’s just a born frontman.

The Kandidate (DK)
Last band on the Filuren stage was new Danish metal act The Kandidate fronted by none other than former HateSphere singer Jacob Bredahl. It might as well have been a solo show, as all eyes were on the towering tall singer who just couldn’t help smiling like a man climaxing. At times the band dished up thunderous beats almost as upbeat as disco, and who can argue against a smiling man growling? Sometimes evil can be entertaining. (LLJ)