ELEPHANT9 + DØDSEGO – live in Oslo
- Posted on 16-03-2025
Full photo gallery:
A March Friday evening has lately become a time when you have the luxury of many great gigs to choose from in almost any big European city. Oslo is no exception, and while I have not attended too many events this year, Elephant9 is just the kind of band that simply feed a high level of good energy back to me so it’s always is a show I cannot miss. Not even after seeing them live at least five times.
And I don’t have the words to describe what an incredible good choice I made, both for the gig but also for being in time to catch the support act, Dødsego. Due everyday stuff demanding a lot of attention, I haven’t had a chance to check them out in advance so I just went in the photopit and waited for the show to begin. Prior to that I had a look at the cool artwork/posters being sold at the merchstand so the initial impression was rather nice.
While waiting for the music to star, I thought it was a bit odd with that white text projected on the background and I was kinda worried I’d have odd and challenging light to put up with. But I once the band took over the stage, something purely magic started. I don’t know how to explain how a massive level of awe took over me when the projected lights turned into the seventh member of the band and made it one of the most psychedelic experiences I ever witnessed at a concert. I don’t have enough knowledge about the specific names for the spinning or ‘blurry’ or ‘TV noise’ like light to try to describe the visuals – see above galleries to get an impression. I am sure I saw them at bigger levels for other bands. But never as hypnotizing as this evening on the John Dee stage, maybe because they were right in front of my eyes or maybe because they were so skillfully put together and well thought for the overall feeling of the concert. Besides amazing lights, the six guys on stage also delivered pure prog rock madness and despite the rather young ages of the band members, you’d easily find yourself feeling the vibes of the 70s. There’s three guitars to walk you through all sorts of funky effects and rhythms and on top of it all, there’s a saxophone (which became bigger for the last song) and that certainly gives the whole sound its own personality and charm. The band is young, is still working on putting together new music that can showcase their skills to the world and I certainly hope they’ll be playing often and their levels of visual and audio imagination will have no limits. The beginnings are pure magic.
With a wide grin on my face I ran into some friends and gossiped a bit about the first band, the upcoming one and other subjects of interests for the evening. All until Elephant9 took the stage. This time as a trio – as I have seen them performing with guests before. But that doesn’t make the live experience any worse. Afterall, I discovered them as a trio and they haven’t lost the capacity to build up to an incredible chaos that you can musically label as whatever you wish to, and you’ll be both right and wrong. They’re all over the place but stick to their style. It has sweet and cozy soft parts and then they gallop into insane impro bits that, no matter the tempo, never lose groove and magic. Every time I witness them live – and no matter how often I listen to their releases – I feel like I’m hearing everything for the first time. And that I never have any idea what’s next. Which is very refreshing, given that every ‘next’ moment is at least as incredible as the previous and I simply have no idea when minutes pass by. The only indication that time passes is the fact that there’s more sweat on the musicians.
The three band members have a variety of backgrounds in the Norwegian scene, from acts such as Bigbang, Motorpsycho, Shining, Supersilent and we who get to experience them are rather lucky that something made them sit together and form this project. Torstein Lofthus on drums makes it looks like it’s child play to combine very unorthodox rhythms that go perfectly well with the bass lines delivered in God-mode by Nikolai Hængsles. I sometimes think his fingers might just grow some extra fingers and listening to his bass is such a delight for my ears. His style should be listed in the definition of groove. On top of these, there’s Ståle Storløkken’s organ/synth play, which adds the perfect amount of color to the rhythm section of the other two musicians. Ståle’s experience makes him find the right notes, high or low, and just layers them perfectly and all this is something you should experience once in your lifetime. And let it charge your batteries. It surely has the power to do so!