Photo: My Oslo Photos II

Here are two more of my Oslo photos.

This is to great buildings in downtown Oslo:

The National Theatre:


The National Theatre by ~Helenert on deviantART

And The Grand Hotel


The Grand Hotel by ~Helenert on deviantART

Great commercials: Dove

I saw this commercial for the first time a few years ago. I think it's amazing and really gives you an insight into why all the models always look so beautiful in magazines. Even to beautiful. With all that hair and make-up and a computer we can all be models. We are all truly beautiful, though we don't feel like it :)

Travel: Rome

A few years ago I went to Rome as a study trip for two and a half week. It was so amazing. This city really blew my mind, and on Sunday I am going back for a week, so there will be a lot of Rome blogging going on this week ;) This is an amazing video of three young people describing how Rome blew their mind. I know how they feel. It's exactly how I felt. Watch and enjoy!

Great interviews: Robbie Williams - kissing and football

This is one of the funniest interviews I have ever seen. Robbie Williams is getting interviewed by a german about football and she is really rubbish at interviewing. He tells her and try to kiss her instead. Very very funny.

Great collaborations: Robbie Williams and Kylie Minouge - Kids

This is one of my all time favorite duets. I love the sexiness and the sassy feeling and the whole rhythm of the whole thing. Really want to make me dance and two such great entertainers. Love the bridge and the rap extra. Lovely stuff.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYB4ebbJUys



Live version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGz6Eg2knho

Live and great cover: Travis - I Kissed a Girl

Here is Travis version of "I Kissed a Girl" from the Mono concert on Thursday. Amazing!! :D And so much better than the original. They might actually have done a Britney 2 ;)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDRf4wpqgmQ



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77dGONWQt3Y

Great music videos: Babyshambles - Delivery

This is one of the most sad and sexy songs at the same time ever. As I understand it's about the worlds most famous junkie, Pete Doherty's view of the life and his struggles. At the same time there is something really sexy, loving and almost happy about the riff that just makes you hum it over and over again. Maybe it's just me that think sad musicians are sexy... haha. I love the contrast between the riff in the verse that is really staccato and the refrain that is really flowing. Just a really really good song. And the video kind of captures the whole essence of it... Pete in everyday scenes in his life and I am so glad it's in black and white. I really wish that someone would help him. I think he just must be a very very sensitive boy and a beautiful soul.

By or by the way of an explanation
Cast adrift off the shores of shotter's nation
I had a lick it caved my skull in like a brick
Oh now what use am I to anyone
I'm fucked, forlorn, frozen beneath the summer
Don't sing along or you'll get what I got

Here comes a delivery straight from the heart of my misery
Here comes a delivery straight from the heart to you

Yeah you now you now you you've finally left school
Oh what on earth do you intend to do
See if you can tick the man go downtown
Where all you skins and mods you get together
Make pretend it's 1969 forever
Find a girl have a drink have a dance and pray

This song might deliver me straight from the harshness of misery
Cos this song's a delivery straight from the heart to you
Yes here comes a delivery straight from the heart of my misery
This song might deliver me straight from the heart to you

Yes here comes a delivery straight from the heart of the misery
Here comes a delivery straight from the heart to you

Live: Coldplay

confetti!!!

green laser!

One of two screens and one of 5 balls. The videoscreens where perfect for us at the sides.
The balls was beautifully lit with patters, lights, videos etc.

I am sitting here wondering to myself: "What is it with Coldplay live?"....

In 2003 I saw Coldplay live at the Quart festival in Kristiansand. I had never seen them live, and quite liked their music, so I was a bit excited. I was no huge fan, but a fan. Oh MAN! They blew me away! I was totally Coldplay-hyped for a great time after.

Now 5 years have passed and still remember that the concert was great and still have their albums and like their songs but it was back to ok. They are good, but what's all the fuzz about.. That kind of feeling. By a very lucky furn of events I got to go and see them in Oslo Spectrum tonight. I wasn't even keen enough to sit in line and wait for the tickets when they were first sold, so I wasn't that crazy about it. Since then though I have listened to the new album a lot (as you can tell from this blogg) and I really liked a lot of it. So when my friend called today and asked if I wanted to come, I said: "Yes!! Please!!".

I was feeling like a cold was coming on so I put on practical clothes and thought that I might have to sit down from time to time, so I was actually quite happy when I found out that the tickets where to seats not to stand in front of the stage. I like the new record, but not THAT much, it would be ok to sit.

So we found our seats quite high up and at the side of the stage but the good thing was that the stage was open so we could see all from the side. Excitedly we waited and tried not to fall of the seats and into the great beyond. That is steap.

Anyways, finally they came on. And my oh my.... They started the whole show playing "And den schönen blauen Donau". Just that is quite amazing. And then it all started. Dear lord.. that Chris Martin, he knows how to hold an audience going... Even though I was that far away I could almost feel his presece. He sprints around stage, talks and screams and waves and might be the only man I have ever seen (except Bono maybe) who can make 8000 clapp just by looking at them and stop... "It's nice clapping but stricktly not necissery" I don't know. It's hard to describe. There is some kind of magic. You get sucked into it. I kind of get how people can become cult members. When Chris Marting tells you to sing, you sing! I think this clip from Oslo in 2005 says a lot:



During the whole Quart show, Chris actually spoke only Norwegian. It was amazing. Tonight he just kept talking about how sorry he was for not talking Norwegian, very sweet. His love of Norway at least seams genuine, though you have a sneaking suspision that he might have "other lovers" or rather "a different lover" each night. It just seams like he love the audiences and love being on stage. Even though if he said: "Ah you are the Norweigans, the great singers!".

As the concert progressed on they moved out to an "island" in the middle of the audience and did a techno version kind of thing of "God put a smile upon your face" and "Talk". Then they moved up into the seated audience and played a few songs from there. Chris saying how sorry he is for not being able to play harmonica the way he should. Sounded quite good though. He also actually showed that he is a quite good piano player. He did some wonderful classical stuff between songs.

At the end they showered the audience with confetti and by then we just keeps standing and clapping ans screaming oohohooooooooooo... ohohoooooh (As in Viva La Vida) after doing that for a few minutes Chris returned with Magne Furuholmen of A-ha explaing what a huge A-ha fan they are and Mags played piano while Chris sang. Amazing. The whole concert ended with an amazing version of Yellow. I am really glad they didn't do a lot of the old songs though and did all the more rocked one and a lot of the new ones :) I almost wanted to sing "hoooow long must she wait for iiit" when we reached the refrain of Yellow though. Those two songs must be very similar somehow.

All in all... It was amazing. The lights and show as a whole was also very very great. And the rest of the band was of course amazing to, but they are kind of just being shadowed by mister Martin. Oh, he got a big hole in his pants by the way. "You Norwegians have such nice legs, this could be fatal, you don't want to see our legs, trust me".

Sigh.

Live: A Travis surprise and a Danish surprise

I have one of the worste call phone cameras in the world, but it's better than nothing ;)

Sometimes I think I have friends in high places.. I really don't, but sometimes I am lucky :) Last night I got a message from a friend of mine on Facebook. He knew that Travis was going to come to Norway tomorrow to do some promo and was doing a surprise gig at Mono! I have been a huge Travis fan since 2001, so I was of course thrilled and "sneaked" the message to my Travis-friends. i didn't want to many to know about it, in fear that it would ruin the whole gig. After a lot of smsing and planing I was sendt of to Mono. There was no way of getting hold of the tickets so the plan was to stick me in there early. (Once your are in they can't kick you out, and I could buy tickets for the others. I arrived at Mono at 18 (they were supposed to start to sell tickets at 20). For the first hour or so I was alone with two other people. I was bunked up in a great sofa right in front of stage with a book about Italian. (Me and my mum are going in about a week. MUCH more about that later). After about one hour my first friend arrived and then a little while after, my friend the SuperTravisFAn. This girl takes the term fan to whole new limits ;)

About half an hour before the show Andy and Fran comes walking casually in and talks a bit to the sound guys and then went away again. It was very very weird. A bit like we were in someones livingroom. I still can't belive how short they are though. I always think that. But it also might be the fact that I am very tall myself ;)

After about one other hour they came back. Both in black. Fran with a very nice hat and Andy with a nice little scarf. It was so cozy, there were only about 100 people tops in the room and it was just very very nice. They were on a tiny stage in the corner only about 5 meters away in a little club. Started of by playing Sing, great as always, and we were singing along. Then it was time for Side. Wonderful. I love that song. I think it's might be my favorite Travis song. Suddenly the guy next to me starts talking about how Side is a coversong, and I said: "No, it's not." "Yes, it is!!" "No, listen. I have been a fan since 2001. I KNOW these things". But he wouldn't give up. It all ended with him getting my phone number after the gig so that he could go home, look it up and tell me that I was wrong. hehe. Very drunk, so I doubt that he'll remember it, but I will tell you if he does. I do not remember the precise order of the rest of the set list, but they did Driftwood and two songs from the new album and a cover. The cover was something about lesbians or maybe a confused gay guy. Didn't really get that, but great song ;) The two new songs also sounded really great, can't wait to hear the whole record. Fran joked about the fact that there is really no use for making more than 4 albums and now they are on their 6th. SO they decided to do a consept album. All the songs are supposedly about J.Smith and his life. (J. Smith is the most common name in the UK). So some kind of everyday man. Will be very exciting to hear the tracks with the whole band and finished.

Andy had an amazing guitar too, twelve string and six string combination. Fran was joking about the fact that he was going to set it on fire, not by matches but by his guitarplaying ;)

During the cover song Franny taped a sheet of paper two a second mic on the stage and read it from there. Really funny. Really greatly played though. Though they must have struggled a bit, because they kept smiling and almost laughing to each other. (See photos under)

Fran also told the story about this surprise concert. It turns out he was sitting at home in Berlin (yes, he lives there now!) and thinking.. I am going to Norway tomorrow. We should play a bit while we are there. So he had phoned Mono and asked if they could do a little live set. And of course they said yes. Very good. I like stars that do it like that.

After Travis Lofiman came on. They were supposed to do the warm-ups and had to follow Travis. Poor guys ;) They were quite good though, I love their guitars and riffs, and rhythms. The melody lines of the vocals wasn't that good though and the vocals in general. Too bad. I think they could have been amazing.

Then it was time for the second surprise of the evening: Barra Head. The next band was supposed to be the main act and we stayed just to see what it was. And it was fu*** amazing!! Frist of all they were so incredibly tight. The music was really surprising and floating and had great rhythms and it was just amazing. Can't belive three persons can make such a great music. Lovely post-rock/metal feel. Just as I later found out they describe themselves. I HAVE to buy the record. An oh, that bassplayer is the best I have seen in my life. Maybe I haven't seen enough but I like to think I have seen a lot. We all were just mesmerized by his playing. And that is not often when it comes to bass players. They are Danish, so after a few songs, the singer started talking. And of course supposed that we would understand. And we kind of did... but not totally. And of course the guy beside me started screaming... "We don't understand shit" So the rest of the show the lead singer/guitarist kept talking danish and the bass player translated it to English. Even words like Thanks and it was very very funny. Great band. Hope to see them again soon. This is their page on MySpace. Magic intensity.



(Oh, and while writing this, I got a message from the superfan. She did it agin. She actually ended up at Fran's table talking to him.. hehe. Well, she deserves it, after 10 gigs. If I had been a little more observant I probably would have been able to too, but by then I was far to occupied by the Danish wonder boys and probably a smoking break).

Life: Domino

For several years I have been wanting to do a big domino ... eh... thing.. What's it called really? I want to build domino patterns and see the effects.. hehe. Anyways. In Holland they do this every year on Domino Day and try to beat the world record. It's a big tv show that is broadcasted all over Europe. i hope it will come to Norway this year. Last year they didn't manage to break the record, but it was a wonderful show nevertheless. I heard about this Domino Day thing about two years ago I think. i saw the video on YouTube, but later it was removed. But now it's back :) You can watch Domino Day 2005, 2006 and 2007 on this users homepage: Lolz0rss

I also really loved a clip from Japanese tv that I found a few years back, where they do domino with household products.



This is another great Japanese one that uses the dominio-effect, though it's not using dominos. Very well planned out and beautiful to watch.

Great songs: Nature Boy

Some songs are just amazing no matter who sings them. Nature Boy is one of them. I don't remember when I heard if for the first time, but it might have been Ella Fitzgerald or Radka Toneff that sang it. Later I have really loved the Bowie-version from Moulin Rouge, Celine Dion's jazzy version and lately I heard James Brown's version for the first time, and it's amazing to.

This is what Wikipedia says about this classic. Apparently it's melody might be stolen from someone else and there are a wast see of different versions, even more than I knew about. To even post the list here, would make en utter chose, so check it out on the wiki-page.

Oh, and some YouTube clips of it of course:

Nat King Cole (The original)


David Bowie



Celine Dion

Musical memories: Radiohead - 2+2=5

After two albums filled with quite a few strange and surprising, yet quite wonderful leaps and bounces, I found myself sitting at 12 o'clock at night in my mother's living room with Radiohead's 6th album "Hail to the thief". It was quite dark in the room, I had cigarettes and ashtray ready and I had just acclaimed to my mother : "I am extremely sorry mother, but I just gotta listen to this, and I gotta do it now."

I was very anxious as I put the cd in the cd-player and silently crossed my fingers in my mind hoping that there would be some rock on this two. Kid A and Amnesiac had been great album, but I had kind of missed Radiohead the rock album.

I pushed play and 2 + 2 = 5 started. I was instantly thrilled. The first rumbling chords and then the great first riff that glides along in 7/8 promising that something else will soon happen. In the background, small climpering noises just painting the whole photo. Then they seemingless goes into 7/8 and it's like they are stretching it further and further before... KABOOOM... Oh yes, that was rock for you. That whole build up still gives me goose bumps. And then suddenly... we fall through another rabitt whole and is suddenly into some psycho 60's rock theme, and just when that is getting boring. They cut away half the instruments before coming back in full speed. By the 3. theme I was rocking half sitting, jumping on the floor. I of course as always had to use about 6 more listenings before I developed my usual love for the rest of the album, but 2+2=5 will always be a favorite of mine. I think it also be my favorite album starter of all time. Genius.

And here it is of course:
Great live from Letterman
That O'Brian CAN sing :)



Live on Later!

Observe Colin's jumping, that they all walk backwards at the KABOOM that I mentioned before,



(Personal highlights for very dedicated fans: Thom's screaming of "screaming" at 1.40, 2.55 the gutiar that stops and starts- great sound cuting going on there, and the naaaat, naaat in the end).

Photo: My Oslo Photos I

This is a new series I starting. I will give you one of the many photos I have taken around Oslo and tell you a little about it. I am sure this will go on forever, as I constantly get inspired by this city :)


Blue Paper Light by ~Helenert on deviantART


White Paper Light by ~Helenert on deviantART


This first one is from Stortorget in Oslo, the main squere. I loved the different lights of this place and did my first real shutter speed effect photo. I give you both the colored version and the white, since I can't decide which one I love the most ;)

Great musicians: PJ Harvey

Photo by; http://www.lostateminor.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/pj_harvey.jpg

I am really a novice when it comes to Polly Jean, but I have loved the album "Stories from the city, stories from the sea" for quite a few years now, and it still give me so much that I haven't got as far as listening much to a lot of her other great stuff yet. This lady just shines of authority, talent, suduction, wit and intelligence. She just amazes me. She is one of those truly talented people that I am sure you just listen to when she enters a room. And what a voice and what a cool change of styles, and what a cool guitarist..

Here are some of my favorites so far:
This is love - On of the most amazing videos in rock female history and such a direct and emotional and "kick-ass" song. It actually might be some of the reasons why I wanted to start to play guitar in the first place ;)



The whores hustle & the hustlers whores: This is some amazing live video :) I love the rawness of this song and how cool she is. I can see how she used to date Nick Cave ;)I also love the wordplay of the title.



Man sized: Nothing to say. Just watch and enjoy.



Speaking of Cave. Here he is joining.. Henry Lee.. Or maybe it's actually she that is joining him. Anyways. Great song.



Last but not least: One of my really favorites: This Mess we're in, where she has got Thom Yorke to sing with her. It has been said that this was one of the songs that made Thom want to sing again after the whole crazy OK Computer shit. I love the beauty of his high and her love voice. Amazing lyrics too.

Fun: If you've ever known a cat, you will love this - Simon's cat

Photo by: http://www.purr-n-fur.org.uk

A while ago I saw my first animatied video with Simon's cat. This was one of the rare times in your life when you see a movie and just can't stop laughing. You just watch it again and again, show it to all your friends and still keep laughing. This is such a great expression of cat behavior, I have never seen anything better. You just keep thinking "Oh yes, this is exactly what cats are like". It's so simple, yet so precise. This is the site of the maker

The first one I saw was about cats trying to wake you up in the morning: Cat-Man-DO



This is the one I watched today about cats wanting to go back inside: Let Me in!



And know I realized that there is even a third one called: TV Dinner About how cats always wanna be a part of whatever you are doing and wants constant attention.

Great music videos: Ok Go - Get over it and Here It goes again

Ok Go is one of the few bands that I started liking because of their music videos. I so "Get over it" and thought it was so funny. Especially the part in the middle where there is a very funny pause and how everything in the video reflects the lyrics.

"Here it goes again" is also a very funny video. An incredible idea first of all with the threadmills. If I am not mistaken I think they actually came of with the idea for that themselves. Genius.

And oh, yes... I really love their music too ;)

Can't believe I haven't posted these before. I have been showing them to people for ages.

Get over it



Here it goes again

Musical memories: Alanis Morisette - Unsent

Me and my friend was just talking about how songs can get connected to the different boys you have been in love with and what you felt at the moment. I have A LOT of these kinds of songs I found out. SO.. I'll just start of with one that is actually about all Alanis X boyfriends and I even used a part of it to explain to a boy once why we couldn't be together. I am not gonna tell you what part, but it still brings tears to my eyes when I hear it. So, here you are.

Friday Fun: People - 1 to 100 years old and love that lasts and starts

This is a very funny and quite amazing video that a friend of mine posted on YouTube. The people in the video are hitting a drum and at the same time they say how old they are. They cover everyone from 1 to 100. It is so exciting to see all the different people and at the same time how they gradually get older and older. It's almost like a map of mankind. Enjoy!

This is what the YouTube page says about the movie:

People in Order's Age is part of a series of short films that assembles the people of Britain in a given order. In just 3 minutes, we meet 100 different people who are arranged according to their age, starting from age 1.

The makers are By Lenka Clayton and James Price



AhA! I just realized there are more than one movie.
I found the other one on Lenka Clayton's homepage. The second one is so so so sweet. It's about people being in love and the length of their relationship, starting by the longest one. Quite beautiful. Watch it here.

R.E.M - The grandfathers of alternative rock (and what's wrong with Norwegian concert audiences)

End of the world from the concert. One of the highlights. I yelled Fine!! To bad it's a only the first part of the song, though.



Last night I attended my second R.E.M concert. I went to see them at Ullevåll stadion in 2006 and it was in the middle of the summer. Light summernight, big stadion, happy people and no one had seen R.E.M in Norway for a lot of years. For me, that night was a night of pure bliss. They played such a variety of all my favorite songs through the years. Even Country Feedback and Nightswimming. That was a whole other R.E.M in a way. They had also relased a whole other album just before that concert...

Last night was very strange in many ways. First of all the concert was moved from the stadion we went to the last time and suddenly (I think both we and R.E.M felt that) we found ourselves in the middle of a gigantic fotball indoors hall. It all started by The Diciplines. The bands front man is the man who used to play in R.E.M's backing band for several years: Ken Stringfellow, so that was no surprise. To be quite honest, I thought they were better then I thought but still quite boring. What was more alarming was the quality of sound in this horried bunker of a hall. After getting drinks and all ready we got up in the middle and found good spots, we thought, for Editors. They have been a favorite band of mine for the last year, so I was really looking forward to that. After about half of the first song, I realized that I could hear almost NO bass at all. So we moved... And we moved again.. And somehow we found a half ways decent place where we could see them and also hear quite well. After a quick smoking break it was time for the wait of the main attraction. At this moment I was so jazzed by Editors that I had almost had forgotten that I was going to see R.E.M. Let me rephrase that... I (!) was jazzed and my friend too. The rest of the crowd just stood there staring at the stage as a bunch of sheep. Really sad. Well, I said to myself. I am sure this will change when R.E.M goes on stage, and yes it helped a bit, but there where still about 500 people sitting down on seats high up in the walls, looking like hens laying eggs. And they hardly moved a muscle. I watched them form time to time and was just ... I can't even describe it... I just shake my head... Why the hell do you pay 500 kr.(about 50£ or 120 $) to do that??? I can't belive it.

Back to R.E.M themselves. First of all, I really really love the new songs, so I liked that there was a lot of them there and there was some good songs from the old time too. But the whole show lacked a bit of edge and thrill and amazement that I felt the last time. But MAN... they can play. You can see that they have played together for 26 years, and even more so hear it. They have this amazing dynamic and are so so so tight. They are the grandfathers of alternative rock. They can't really do anything wrong by now on stage.

I love Michael Stipe as a front man and I think he really makes a show live and lyrics come through when he sings. I love his little comments like "how the hell are you?" "I hate my goverment, you know that right" "You have gay marriages now right?". It's the same kind of politic thing as Bono, but in a so so more elegant way. U2 concerts can be a little overpowered by politics at times ;)

Last night though even he felt the bad sound. At one point he just laughed and said "I get so much reverb in here. My voice comes right back when I sing". So yes, the sound really sucked at time. How can we let legends like R.E.M play in such a horrible place like that, in front of a bunch of half drunk hens and statues of people. I can't belive it.... If you don't like the music, don't go to the concert. It's not a party or an event to get drunk and pick up chicks. Well .... maybe is when you are at the local community house somewhere in a forgotten wally of Norway, but this is R.E.M !!! Enough with the blasphemy.


As you can see below, the set list was a lot of new things and also a lot of great classics. I really wanted country feedback or be mine though ;)well that's what happens when you let Peter Buck choose the songs (according to Stipe he choose the songs). I love that they played Let me in and Horse to Water and

Living Well is the Best Revenge
Begin the Begin
What's the frequency Kenneth
Drive
Driver 8
Man-Sized Wreath
Ignoreland
Hollow Man
Imitation of Life
West of the Fields
Houston
Electrolite
The Great Beyond
I'm Gonna DJ
Turn You Inside Out
Exhuming McCarthy
The One I Love
Let Me In
Horse to Water
Bad Day
Orange Crush
End of the World

encore:

Supernatural
Losing My Religion
At My Most Beautiful
Pretty Persuasion
Man on the Moon

And since I didn't get to see Country Feedback again last night, this is what it looked like a week a go in england.

Great commercials: Discovery

I got this one from my dear friend Erlend's blog and it's so so beautiful, funny and cute. Warms my heart and makes me smile at the same time. I am a real fan of Discovery too. This commercial is a very good on for all the great stuff they are about and at the same time a real great celebration of the world as a great place to live in :) Enjoy!

Here it is: