Pop Dakar is a free, annual Stockholmian music festival that sports a range of artists, from some quite well-known ones to very small ones to international players. Last year I missed out on it completely (thereby excluding The Lucksmiths, my bad) but this year around I had to go, despite Voxtrot's disappearing act.
The festival is held at Stockholm University and packed two stages, one out-doors and the other in-doors. We didn't spend much time outside the tent (as we couldn't get in - it was packed the entire time we attended) so we headed towards the other stage and got ourselves a couple of plastic cups of red wine. We'd already treated ourselves to a glass each while watching the brilliant film "This Is England" prior to going Pop Dakar. If you haven't seen that film - do it. It's brilliant. ((My review of it's found here.)) Anyway, back to the festival. There were appx. 75 people waiting for the first band, The Barbwires, to start playing.
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Yep, play they did. They're a foursome of guys from Sweden who play surf/garage rock and they were really nice to listen to. Any band that sports uniforms is automatically cool in some sense. X and I carried on listening and sipping red wine. It was particularly nice to see the variety of people who made out the crowd; it seems that even Stockholm is having its "indie crowds" blended by people of more diverse age-groups than ten years ago,
After The Barbwires had left the stage, a little tent run by a big record company started playing Band of Horses' new single, "Is There a Ghost", which is available for download (!) at their MySpace site. Do that, then worship the band. I'll buy their coming album, "Cease To Begin", the minute it's released. Their former album is one of the best I've heard in ages.
After The Barbwires I decided to have some food. The wine wouldn't do me anything but bad if I had more on an empty stomach, and you know, you've gotta eat. So, we checked out a small Asian place on site, that served a deep-fried mix of mashed chick-peas, carrots and other veggies. Three of those lumps for 45 crowns with sweet and sour-sauce was OK. We picked up the festival schedule and ironically pondered who the "secret artist" was to be. Voxtrot? BIG HA! Morrissey? Arctic Monkeys? Aw, seriously, who? Timo Räisänen? Would be expected, but boring. José Gonzà¡les? Oh, noes. Could very well be. Voxtrot? ---
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We sat down on the same spot as before, and checked out Those Dancing Days. Oskar (from Tvålpalatset) has a little sister who plays guitar in that band, and as I've seen them before (opening for Bonde Do Role) I wanted to see if they'd grown any. They haven't. Don't get me wrong! I still think they're a nice pack of twees, but they definitely are earning their chops. It'll be interesting to see whether their next releases will get them moving artistically or just hand out more of the same. Not that there's anything wrong with that in some cases (e.g. The Jesus and Mary Chain) and do remember that all members of this band are 17 years old and have quite briskly been thrown into the Swedish "indie" limelight - I think they'll do just fine of they pick up a copy of Drummond/Cauty's "The Manual"...or just do their own thing long enough to start really evolving.
A drunken sire waddled onto the stage just as Those Dancing Days were finishing their set. He tried to dance around, grabbed a bunch of flowers that was flung to the singer earlier and went down on one knee with them to the singer, who wasn't entirely comfortable with it all. After the set he declared himself to be the "secret artist" previously promised. At first I thought him to be Timo Räisänen, but he wasn't. I think. Festival security dealt with him the moment he set foot outside the stage, and I hope he was merely dejected from the stage. TDD's singer jumped to his defense during his kerfuffle with said security. Kind and nice of her.
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Crowding at the out-doors stage
As there wasn't exactly much to do at the festival site other than create your own fun, we headed down the slope to check out some records: I found a box of CD's with Ride but didn't buy anything as it would have been an exercise in futility: I'm not saying Ride is anything but shoegaze kings, but at this point I really don't need more music to buy.
We decided to check the secret artist and stood fairly close to the front. A single chair had been placed centre-stage and as some people were getting more and more drunk, the Swedish summer obviously came to an end. Temperatures are dropping and the air was cold. Luckily, huddling like penguins brought a good thing into the equation as this kept the crowd warm. People started shouting for more. A tall idiot on our right side started shouting "VISA NAVELN" (Swedish for "show your navel") even before anybody stepped on-stage.
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Then suddenly Orup erupted. Or rather just walked onto the stage. Orup is the stage name of Thomas Eriksson, a very well-known Swedish artist who had a very successful career during the 80's and 90's, yet nowadays is mostly touring Swedish parks during the summer, when he's not playing Johnny Cash in some theatrical get-up of "Walk The Line".
People embraced him. It was quite like seeing an old uncle that you like but haven't seen for a while, one that you forgive for his embarrassing songs and like for his good ones and...longevity. He took to the stage and started playing an oldie. People went completely berzerk, and I felt like some of the people in front of us knew he was going to show, you know, old-time fans. People started pushing. Orup wasn't accompanied by any musicians but played a set of old tracks - "Då står pojkarna på rad", "Magaluf", "Regn hos dig" and the modern classic that he wrote for Lena PH, "Det gör ont") with new ones, where "Indiedrottning" (trans. "Indie Queen") was the most welcome addition; the lyrics tell of Orup meeting a young lady who's into indie music, and, as the refrain says it, thinks he's old and too much of a man of the people, but that she still owned his first album. Sweet. He played it at the end of his set. Just prior to it, people started shouting requests. "You're asking for such strange songs," Orup said. X screamed for "Indiedrottning" as the hard-core fans wanted really old hat, and after the first chords of said song were cracked, X screamed even harder. I laughed so hard and felt so good. We even enjoyed a backing band of four boys who stood slightly behind us and sang along with every track - as did most of the other crowd as most of the songs that Orup played are Swedish pop classics - yet tried different pitches à¡ la barbershop with grand and horrific results, to everybody's pleasure. At times I had to exchange glances with them and everybody were in stitches. Brilliant.
After Orup ended his set we left. All in all, Pop Dakar had been a pleasurable experience, mostly due to The Barbwires and Orup. The festival was well arranged. I'm looking forward to next year and also for Voxtrot to stop fucking around and come to Stockholm ““ yes, I am bitter, as if you haven't noticed, ha!