Blood, sweat, and lots of rock’n’roll
Report by Marlene

Together with two friends, I was one of the 150 lucky people who could attend the Skambankt Lydverket event at Internasjonalen, for free and just like that.

We had been told several times before that the doors would open precisely at 8 p.m. and therefore, everybody had to be there at that time. So, to be on the safe side, we arrived a bit earlier, ordered our drinks, and found out that the whole atmosphere was very relaxed. At 8 p.m., it was way too crowded inside for my taste. Everybody waited for the doors to open. But that didn’t happen on time, because Tollak was late, as it turned out when he fought his way through the crowd.

Soon after, the audience was allowed up the spiral staircase as well, into the room with a bar and small stage, which was richly equipped with instruments so that it didn’t offer the musicians much room to move. Thus all the best on just 7 square meters.

After a short instruction (“Please do not step on cables, make way for cameras, and don’t be angry if a shot must be repeated.”) the recording started. Asbjørn Slettemark, moderator of Lydverket, positioned himself at various places in the audience and reported on music news, like Röyksopp’s visit to the nursing home in conjunction with the new album “Senior”, indie music in American television series, Kvelertak’s naked stage performances.

The Skambankt interview unfortunately turned out to be no more than a two minute conversation about Terje’s favorite CD releases of the fall, and that was it.

But actually, the concert was the highlight anyway, because most likely we won’t have the chance to see Skambankt during the upcoming tour.

The band members made their way to the stage through the excited crowd, that is, Børge, Terje, Tollak, and Christer Knutsen. Yes, Christer Knudsen himself, and he wasn’t there to replace Hans Panzer on guitar, an idea which enlightened my head for a minute, but he crept into a corner where there was no light and worked the keyboards, for example during Amnesti. And if some light actually made it to Christer’s head, you could see a broad grin.

When the program director asked about Hans a little nervously, Terje just said: “Oh, he’ll arrive soon.” They were all relaxed. This was also noticeable when they were playing. It was obvious that they enjoyed it, and the audience – at least those around us – did too.

The first song was “Kaos, så inferno”, followed by “Mantra” and again “Mantra” for a different camera angle. “En gang til!”, the audience shouted afterwards, which amused the band, but we got to hear “Amnesti”. Enough new songs, they thought and played “Slukk meg”, “O Dessverre”, and “Stormkast”. During the latter, some mischievous guest unfortunately threw a glass towards the stage, which broke at a spotlight and rained down on the front of the stage, hitting Terje. Unflinchingly, they finished the song and dabbed small wounds.

The incident couldn’t harm the good mood, and our euphoria accompanied us through the rest of the night.