I finally solved the mystery of this summer. It was obvious all the time, it should have been apparent, but nobody put two and two together, it seems.

I know, everyone always rants about the weather. I’m the first in line there. But this year it was really, really awful! The summer started out just fine, with a sunny and warm spring – and that was it. Instead of summer, we got stuck somewhere between April and May, weather-wise. Lots of rain and cloudy skies. When the sun came out, it was actually quite nice, but it didn’t really get warm for more than two days in a row. At a festival ten days ago, it was so frickin’ cold that I wished I had brought my winter jacket.

So, what’s wrong with this summer?! The solution is simple. Let’s take you back to Southside festival in mid-June. The weather was terrible (which is not surprising, since the festival takes place during a time that is usually cold and rainy in Germany – right before the real summer starts). But: Kaizers Orchestra were playing there! And as everyone knows, the sun always comes out when Kaizers play! (And yes, this is actually true, I’ve seen it a number of times.)

And it happened at Southside festival as well. The weather got better right before Kaizers went on stage, and in the middle of their concert, the sun came out. And of course Janove started bragging about it: “See, we brought the sun with us from Norway, just for you. Aaah, don’t mention it, it’s nothing! You can keep it!” Boom, there we had it. Everybody was happy. Kaizers gave us the sun!

There were just two tiny details that nobody took into consideration back then:

1) Kaizers gave the sun away. Which meant they didn’t have it anymore afterwards. Which meant they were playing in almost constant rain for the rest of the summer… (The exception proves the rule, of course.)

2) Germany had the Norwegian sun from then on instead of the German one. And well… the summer was actually quite good for a Norwegian summer, right? Just that I personally would prefer a German summer, to be honest. (Or a Portuguese or whatever, as long as it is warm…)

So… bummer. Didn’t quite work out the way it was planned.

But the good news is: I promised right after that concert to bring the sun back to Norway for Øya festival. And that is only one week away now. So we just need to get through one more week of bad weather until the German sun can finally make it back here and give us a real summer. It’s about time!