Norwegian Wood - Gigwise At Hove Festival

Hove Festival in Norway is a festival with a difference. Not only is the setting near perfect for pretty much any activity, except maybe sacrificial burnings? No, that too, there’s also an eco-friendly slant firmly embedded into the festival ethos that see’s bio-ethanol fuel used to power generators; All carbon emissions outputted throughout the festival will be neutralised by funding a rainforest regeneration charity; profits pumped into surrounding charities and organizations; recyclable material as far as the eye can see. Well, you get the drift. Oh, and did we forget to mention that there’ll be a whole host of international acts and Nordic artists playing over the course of the five days in which this festival takes place that offers so much eclecticism it almost makes your head swim.

It’s only in its second year but already people are talking about Hove as been one of the festivals of the summer, just so long as you can find your way onto the idyllic Norwegian fjord setting and bring enough Krone to eat and drink for a week. Not only does the festivals stunning setting offer a refuge from the porta-loo fires of Leeds or the muddy swamp that used to be Glastonbury, Hove’s emphasis on environmentalism manages to make green cooler for the younger generation more then Al Gore’s flights of fancy ever could. How long until Gigwise realise that Hove isn’t your average festival? Well, twenty minutes after arriving at Torp (International apparently) we’re driving through Norwegian scenery as fine as you’re likely to see whilst relaxing to tunes provided by an ‘Old School Rock’ DVD our stereotypically large Nordic coach driver assures us is “real great music.” Here we come.

After all the Old School Rock you can bear to remember, we arrive at the Hove site thinking things couldn’t get any better, how wrong we were. The Hove site is, to put it mildly, breathtaking. At first we’re inclined to pay attention to festival organiser supreme as he talks us through the multitude of literature, film and different.phpects of Norwegian culture that make up the festival site proper, but then realise the beauty of Hove is that you don’t really have to know what each different.phpect is exactly, as its easy to immerse yourself in it simply by wondering through. Each discovery a true looking glass moment as you come across a tent with a hundred beers from around the world situated next to a jagged feminist screaming at her audience to castrate her. Its almost as if the musics just a bonus, I’d pay the ticket price just to stay here, though the added allure of a press house over tent certainly doesn’t do the thought of five days here any harm.

So after the formality of discovering Hove and the first sampling of Norwegian beer we find ourselves realising that our idyllic setting has made us quite forget that Hove offers a diverse audible delight that’s slowly passing us by and rush off in the vague direction of music.

The first act we come across are The Cool Kids, whose home grown Hip Hop brings the main stage to a light simmer before Jay-Z blows it up later.  Tight lines and an urgency to inject some life into the crowd still managing to get over early morning commute means The Cool Kids manage to avoid the embarrassment of coming out under that moniker and not actually proving it. As the Hove crowd descend to the main stage the sight of a few thousand blonde heads bouncing in unison to a scratched sample of House of Pain’s ‘Jump Around,’ we struggle to think of a better way to start our time in Norway.

So after a fine sprinkling of beats we’re ready for some brawn, and who better to provide it than New York indie-punksters Les Savy Fav. It must sometimes seem unfair that Tim Harrington’s antics dominate their live reviews, but Tim Harrington’s antics dominate their live show, so get used to it. First of all he takes to the stage bedecked in blazer and elbow patches, taking us through all the reasons we’re now attending summer school. Fives minutes later and about half the crowd look like they believe they’ve  just stumbled into some weird pastoral nightmare, until Tim discards his attire in favour of red leggings and wife beater and they launch into a set mainly taken from recent LP ‘Lets stay friends’.  The band continue to play as Tim descends from the stage, and in no particular order; rides a bike round the audience, falls off, runs into the woods, crawls under a tarpaulin below the crowds feet and wraps his head in bandages until the band depart and we finally remember they were there the whole time.

But if what we’ve seen so far is the lowering yourself in gently as the waters still fucking boiling part of the festival, then the absolutely gigantic crowd settling in for Jay-Z shows us we’re getting close to the bit where your feet slip and you writhe round in half agony, half wondrous unbridled joy. Jay-Z has one of the biggest shows of his life coming up later in the week at Glastonbury, but somehow we don’t think he’s the sort to let the nerves show. Unfortunately for a man whose star status is probably as high as they come, the production lacks a little, gigantic LCD screens aside. Jay-Z becomes a lone figure on stage, and sometimes it works, ‘Hard Knock Life’ and ’99 problems’ becoming impassioned cries that almost warrant a hug if you could get past the fifty security guards. Unfortunately sometimes it doesn’t, and halfway through ‘Girls,girls,girls’ we can almost see the laptop’s been burnt back at chez-z.  It’s that creepy.  Never the less, Mr. Z is an international star, and as the sun sets and his shades come on, things could be a lot worse.
Unfortunately for us we get too drunk to enjoy Animal Collective’s ethereal noisescape in what must be the perfect setting for it, the Roman style amphitheatre Tim Harrington gave us the tour of earlier. Unfortunately we’re not drunk enough to forget the fact that Crystal Castles have decided to not bother tonight and reconvened for tomorrow, so we stumble off in the vague direction of home, which Hove is soon feeling very much like.

Tuesday starts quite late for Gigwise as the sun sits brightly in the sky, or is it early? The Norwegian weather certainly lightens the mood and MGMT seem like the perfect accompaniment to a sunny afternoon. Possibly the band most likely to be headlining these things next year, MGMT don’t do much to help their chances. The sound held up superbly yesterday, and anything that can handle a Jay-Z pounding can surely deal with a bit of tripped out pop-psych?  Seems not, ‘pieces of what’ sounds worse than it did on the album, and ‘Time to Pretend’ manages to ruin itself in the first five seconds, we never thought that intro could grate. Its left to ‘Kids’ at the tail end of the set to offer some condolence, but as the vocal descends into a breathy murmur and half the band amble off looking slightly confused, no one is as much as us.

Stars arrive looking to lighten up the main stage later in the day by the stream of White tulips placed around it, an environmental nod to Hove. Unfortunately halfway through the set we realise that Stars aren’t that great, and now they’ve picked those flowers their all destined to die, bleak. It’s hard to put your finger on exactly what’s wrong with the set. It could be the fact they’ve got the girl/guy chemistry all wrong by making her androgynous and him almost cabaret, or it could just be that the fact we can’t even remember whether we did like it or not says it all.

It’s a couple of hours later, four too many canteen hot dogs and free beer gone we’re all but ready to give up on Tuesday. Not only have Crystal Castles cancelled, breaking some sort of record for most cancellations in one festival, but because of this we now have to sit through Vampire Weekend, almost a fate worse than death.

Luckily for us Deerhunter arrive to save the day, they might not look like superheroes but their sound, you imagine, could decimate buildings or explode heads. Its thoughtful shoegaze at its best, even though the sound in the smaller tent doesn’t always work, we’re kind of glad of it Deerhunter are so loud. Later it turns out it was loud enough, as we manage to catch the last bit of Luke Pritchard’s superstar gurns with a head full of white noise rather than jangly idiot pop, thank you Deerhunter.

After a quick stop to fill up on Hotdogs and a glance in on The Wombats in the little pink tent, which it turns out is a little too intimate as the floor buckles and a huge Wombats fan shaped hole appears underneath, we decide the best thing we can do is go grab a drink in anticipation of Hercules & Love Affair.

Anticipation is right, albeit the local brew’s filled us with a vigour our legs haven’t experienced since leaving England, it’s the sound of HALA that’s really making us dance like loons, and the added allure of trampling over hundreds of pit fallen Wombat fans means HALA have never sounded so good. We can’t decide who’s a man and who isn’t, but the beers so good it almost seems not to matter, especially when Nomi’s vocals turn Blind into an asexual feast for the ears.

It’s nearly one, and just as were about to give up hope and trundle off to Vampire Weekend, a real superhero appears on the horizon, well, erm... near the kebab hut. Its Peer sdjaweo, and he’s come to tell us Crystal Castles have decided to show up and D.J. at the fine dining cum party tent in the middle of the woods (bizarre but true). An hour later, much more free beer and a very long discussion with Ethan as to why them cancelling nearly ruined Gigwise’s Hove experience,  its nice to know hero’s do exist, they just don’t make half arsed world music and talk about their degrees.

Tuesday’s last minute heroics add a touch of nostalgia to our Wednesday morning, or is it a hang over? Anyway, a five day festival is all about looking ahead, and so we enter the continuous Norwegian sunshine to catch White Denim. Despite the fact no ones here, White Denim don’t even draw breath, a barrage of hazy rock and roll regardless its only for the few and far between.  White Denim’s  ragged Texan charm, at one point they forget what song to play, might not just be enough to propel them to stardom, but tunes like, “Let’s Talk About It’ and ‘All You Have to Really Do’ will certainly help.

Foals take to the main stage looking like a trip round the fjords has done them the world of good.  A greeting of ‘We had a terrible show in Sweden’ seems to be the Norwegian equivalent of an American ‘your football rules,’ drawing a huge cheer before the band huddle together and launch into their set. The more we see Foals the more we realise how much of a unit they are, intricate guitar lines weave in through the rhythm at sometimes blistering speeds. Each song feels intimate, which is why them playing the main stage with a (disappointingly) small crowd means the atmosphere doesn’t quite reach the heights of previous shows. But these are minor grievances in a set littered with highlights, ‘Two Steps Twice’ always a favourite, whereas a speedily learnt ‘Big Big Love’ doesn’t quite come off but promises better things for the future.  ‘Electric Bloom,’ finishes proceedings, and Yannis’s retiring goodbye might be at odds with the more exuberant acts we’ve seen this week, but his pedigree as one of the most identifiable front men around is testament to Foals ethos of provoking thought.