081006 Morrissey, Oslo, Norway

During the late summer of 2006 I embarked on a loosely planned, five-week solo bicycle tour across Scandinavia.  This was just my second bike trip and I had planned it using the same ratio of days versus kilometres that I had used when I cycled across Newfoundland.  

I soon discovered that there is much more to stop and see in Europe than there is on The Rock, so about a third of the way in I started looking for ways to increase my leisure time.  Ducking out of the rain one day I noticed a poster in a record store window advertising a three-day music festival in Oslo called Øyafestivalen.  The lineup was easily good enough to inspire me to forego a bunch of fjord-surfing and instead take the train up the west coast of Norway, which proved to be a heck of a beautiful journey past postcard-inspiring scenery and through at least a hundred ear-popping tunnels.

I woke up on August 10th and quickly packed up my tent, making it to the train station just in the nick of time.  I was pleased that the train had a special section for bicycles, and without a worry in the world I glued myself to a window seat and enjoyed the most wondrous train rides of my life, arriving in Oslo in the late afternoon.  After waiting out one of Norway’s remarkably frequent rainstorms I pointed myself towards the nearest campground and lo, I just so happened upon the Øya festival grounds along the way.  I bought a pass to the sold-out fest from some guy on the sidewalk at a bit of a bargain ($240CDN) and continued up the mountain to pitch my tent before walking back down to begin three days of cycle-less leisure.  

Øyafestivalen was held on an island, though you’d almost never know it.  A ten-metre footbridge was the only clue; once onsite it was just dangerous rocky outcrops pockmarking several fields which held three large festival stages.  The beer lineups were remarkably long, I’m sure due in part to how thorough the entrance inspection was.  I mean they were looking in people’s boots, and there were two different check-ins where security staff physically tugged on every single wristband to ensure they were real and strapped on tight.

I grabbed an eleven dollar beer after a twelve minute wait and made it back to the mainstage just in time to see Morrissey strut onto the stage to start his set, looking fine in a sharp black tuxedo.  This may surprise you: I had never heard Morrissey before this and I knew nothing at all of his career.  I couldn’t even have told you with much confidence that he used to lead The Smiths, though that would have probably been my first guess.

That said, I became a fan pretty quickly.  Vibing like an overconfident blend of Tom Waits and Frank Sinatra, Morrissey swaggered onto the stage fronting what could only have been the world’s cleverest punk band and proceeded to sing song after song with incredible poetic intelligence.  And what a voice!  My heart was immediately overwhelmed with swelling joy.

Like me, the crowd was really into the show, and unlike me they obviously knew a lot of the songs.  A midset fight nearly broke out just to my right but other than that everything seemed pretty chill, though I found out in a hurry that the Norwegians are not the sort of people to “excuse-me-pardon me” their way through a crowd.  The best you might get is a hand on your shoulder almost gently pushing you aside, but more commonly it’s just a barge-through with no sensitivity to the natural alleyways that ebb and flow in every crowd.  I was initially annoyed but I quickly switched over to ‘different culture, different rules’ mode and had myself a great time.  

After the show I grabbed a shawarma and caught a city bus back up the extremely tall and steep hill to my tent-atop-the-city-fjord.  The ride cost $6 (everything in Norway is expensive) but my bike-weary legs felt that the break was well worth the fare.