Oya Festival Oslo
Published 38 months ago
Norway's Oya festival, a low-key but highly enjoyable four-day music festival.
Dazed Digital went to Norway a couple of weeks ago, to Oya, a low-key but highly enjoyable four-day music festival just on the outskirts of Oslo. Just near the fjord, and set round a small lake, the idyllic beauty of it all was slightly jarred by the large, concrete motorway flyover banking round the edge of it, and which meant you did need a fairly high degree of imagination to subscribe fully to the 'pure, unsullied gathering in the Norwegian countryside' status hinted at in the handbook. With three main stages, and a good balance of international and homegrown artists, there was however an impressively successful eco-policy that not only dealt with waste and recycling without much fuss, but also meant that all the stalls served 100% organic (and tasty) food from local restaurants. Whereas in England, the sight of a small lake at a festival would be the signal for a mass outbreak of swimming / urination / vomiting, at Oya the mood remained relaxed, and if the headliners were greeted by polite applause rather than wild abandon, then the sponsor's sofas dotted around the site were actually used for the purpose of sitting on, rather than being instantly set alight as they probably would have been at this weekend's Reading and Leeds events.
From various conversations we had, Oya is a favourite with the bands that play there, who appreciate such delights as sound systems that can be heard by the crowd, and for visiting festival-goers, who found they could move around from stage to stage and even get a drink without having to queue for over an hour. By taking the lead internationally in making festivals more ecologically friendly (they produce a handbook that other major events are now looking at), and in respecting the people that come to it, Oya have built up a cool, smart and impressive event that will appeal to any vaguely conscientious music fan looking for something a bit different to a few days getting wasted in the mud. Here's a few other things we learned over the weekend...
French hip hop crew TTC are not averse to rapping over Ace of Base, should the mood take them. ('In France, we used to have these CDs called Euro Dance Party. Well, that was Euro Dance Party in Oslo in the middle of the afternoon,' says Teki Latex later, red with sunburn)
An 'eco-festival' essentially boils down to such undeniably sensible ideas as providing different recycling bins, and giving kids a Krone for each empty glass they pick up and return to a collection point (which, judging from how pricey Norway seems to be, is probably like £10 or something).
William Reid from the Jesus and Mary Chain has tiny, pudgy, baby-soft hands, rather like those of a 12-year-old, a fact of which he is inordinately proud.
Yo Majesty! will get the crowd shaking their booty like only a female bare-breasted lesbian hip hop crew from Tampa, Florida can. Awesome. ("Norway, where you at??")
202 out of 204 acts turned up to play, and the only two that didn't were British - Lily Allen and Amy Winehouse, with a throat infection and an overdose respectively.
Devendra Banhart has a thing for Dr Hauschka hand cream.
Battles are deservedly well on their way to globe-straddling mega-stardom, and will probably be writing intricate math-rock chart-toppers for Kylie before the year is out.
Edvard Munch's "The Scream" is not on show in the local art museum because it was stolen a few years ago.
The Norwegian music scene has plenty to offer, from the likes of upcoming indie-pop imp Ida Maria, to Ungdomskulen (who didn't play but are great), to some stern-faced men whose name we couldn't pronounce but we were told translates as "Beaten to shit".
Norway is so expensive that you probably won't be able to afford to go, which is a shame because it's a great festival.
oyafestivalen.com
