By Bjornar Aarnes (via Words and Guitar)
Last night I saw Sleater-kinney live for the first time, and I said hello to Carrie.
Here’s what happened:
Oya festival takes place in a park by the shoreline, in walking distance from downtown Oslo. It’s a two-day happening with (mostly) independent music, and Sleater-kinney went on stage at 4.30 on day 2. I arrived with four friends from work, two of which had never heard Sleater-kinney before, just as Mogwai entered the stage. We relaxed a while in the grass; weather was hot, the park was crowded, and the beer was cold. After Magwai had finished, we quickly moved towards the stage. The girls were tuning their instruments, Carrie to the left, wearing a red t-shirt and jeans, and Corin to the right, dressed in a grey skirt and an offwhite t-shirt.
I was too exited to remember to make a note of the first song they played, but I think is was ‘My Stuff’. They continued with ‘Taste test’ and ‘ End of You’. One of my friends shouted out “Welcome to Oslo!”, to which Carrie politely replied “Thank you” and added, in Norwegian, “Tusen takk”. They played ‘Combat rock’, followed by ‘O2′ and a new song (Giraffe). In the beginning of ‘Step Aside’, something happened to Carrie’s equipment. She had to change guitar, and Corin and Janet did a tremendous job finishing ‘Step Aside’ by themselves. The crowd backed them up immediately, clapping and screaming like crazy. ‘One beat’ was next, and then another new song (Don’t drag me down, I’m not falling). Corin said “Two more songs”, and somebody shouted for ‘Words and Guitar’. They played an extended version, with a jamming session at the end, and quickly moved over to ‘Dig me out’. Yeah Yeah Yeahs would play the same stage a couple of hours later, and meanwhile we grabbed some pizza and relaxed in the sun. We were all sweaty and happy; and the two girls who had never heard them before were very impressed and just died to see them again, doing a full 90-minute set. We arraived a little bit late for the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.
The crowd was somewhat bigger than when Sleater-kinney had performed, but maybe not quite as enthusiastic. We found a spot in the background, to the left of the main area, and had only stood there for a couple of minuted when one of my friends asked me to turn around and look at the short-haired girl with the tatoo on her right arm just five feet to the left of me. In a pause between two tunes I went up to her and said “Carrie Brownstein?”. I shook her and and said I was a big fan of Sleater-kinney. She looked pleased, but didn’t say too much; she seemed very shy and very polite, and I didn’t want to act like an obcessive fan so I just said I was so glad to see them play in Norway. She took off shortly after.
A couple of people came up to me last night and asked where I had aquired the ‘One beat’ t-shirt I wore. And at the record stand the salesman told me they were sold out of ‘One beat’ and ‘Dig me out’ CDs.
Filed under: Reviews