You just got to love this band! If not for their amazing concerts, then for the fact that they actually give me something to write about every single time … =;-)

Third concert for me on this tour, and for the third time, the concert was completely different from all the other concerts. This time, we were back to club show size. Unlike Høvleriet in Haugesund, Union Scene felt pretty empty though. =:-( When we came in, there were maybe twenty people in there. It filled up a bit more when Longfield & Super Skeleton started (they are awesome, by the way – guess Skambankt are the rocket strappers of Norwegian rock now =;-) – but PLEASE: I don’t need to see Longfield running around on stage naked at their last show, like I saw Kvelertak at Union Scene the last time I was there … *lol*). Still, before Skambankt came on, I looked around and felt kinda bad – where the hell was everyone?! Well, Skambankt came on, people got closer to the stage, and suddenly it felt as if the venue was full! Yay!

And again, just as in Oslo, everyone was into the concert – both the new songs and the old, people knew the lyrics and were into it, and the atmosphere was hot. I think I wasn’t the only one surprised by this, but just like the band, I loved it. =:-) Skambankt asked who had seen them before and who was at their first Skambankt show, and amazingly, almost half of the people were there for the first time! I would have never expected that, but it explained why a good part of the audience was familiar with the new songs.

One thing I noticed though is that while I dette huset works perfectly as a first song music-wise, it might not be the best song to start with if you have to sing it … =:-( Terje had trouble with it at the record shop gig already, and it was similar at the concert. It got a lot better during the show though – at least until the last few songs, where his voice was pretty much gone, so they even skipped one of the encores (after promising three songs, pfff! *g*). Luckily, this was the last show for the weekend, so some time to recover.

When they started the intro for Balladen om deg (a lot of pling plong on the guitar – I guess the musical term would be arpeggio *g*), they stopped after a bit and noticed that Terje’s guitar was in the wrong key. So he changed to another one, started off with all the pling plong again, and then the rest of the band came in – in another key. *lol* No clue which guitar was wrong now, but of course Terje had a good explanation for it (which also passed the time while they were figuring it all out *g*): When they were sleeping on the bus in the morning, backliner Kjell suddenly woke up when a thieve slunk in. And after almost getting hold of him and grabbing him by his ankle through the window, he had to chase him through half of Oslo … no wonder he’s a bit exhausted and messing the tuning up a little … =;-) Anyway, third time’s a charm, and “eg driter i den introen nå, okay”? *rofl* Well, and for the rest of the night, we got constant “Kjell! Kjell! Kjell!” chants.

For the first time, I got to hear Protest dommer live, and it worked really well. And after Horisonten brenner, Terje asked that after this Skambankt pop, are we ready for some Skambankt punk? We were, and so we got Me sa nei – including a count-down part down from 30. Talk about killing time. =;-)

But yes, a really awesome concert, and totally worth the trip! Can’t wait for the show in Trondheim – even though I’m a bit curious about the audience there. During the last concerts, the average age was quite high (which is probably not that surprising considering that Skambankt have been active for like 10, 15 years now). And the Trondheim audience usually consists of students only … so let’s see how that will turn out!

Here’s the full setlist:

1. I dette huset
2. Voodoo
3. Protest dommer
4. Kommer snart hjem
5. O dessverre
6. Slukk meg (for eg brenner)
7. Balladen om deg
8. Levende legende
9. Vår bør
10. Stormkast #1
11. Gribben
12. Horisonten brenner
13. Me sa nei
14. Dynasti
    ———
15. Mantra
16. Skambankt