Kildemose Festival, Refsvindinge, Denmark 6/26-27/09
From Aural Innovations October 2009 update
This is Denmark’s little jewel of a festival run by local music lovers, who happen to have really good taste in music and bring over a lot of Denmark’s coolest underground rock and psych bands as well as their own local Fyn bands that play almost every year. It is in a beautiful location (140km from Copenhagen) out in the nature and on the grounds of a great brewery so the beer is amazing! This was only the second time I had been to the festival and this was the ninth time they have had it. The festival site looked more or less the same but they had split the main bar and main kitchen, had some extra artwork and shaded places and more tables. We had great weather this year and you could wear shorts and sandals most of the time until the night came and it became too cold with the quite strong winds at times.
The music started on the Friday at 19 with Copenhagen rock band, Fuzz Manta. They arrived just about 18:45 so it was quite a rush for them but they got started at 19:15, which is nice as this festival has a long history of starting late, bands taking way too long to set up and play over time etc so that the last bands who are scheduled around midnight start to play at 3-4 in the morning and there is hardly any people left. They were going to try not to let this happen this year, especially since my band was playing last tonight, I really hoped it would work. Anyway, Fuzz Manta tried out some new material that they did not play at the CD release party or at Drone so that was cool. The new stuff is real 70’s rock stuff and not that stoner rock like their earlier material. They rocked the place for like 55 minutes and sounded great. Not that many people were watching, which it seems is mostly the case at this festival where the only bands with a lot of people are at after 19 or so.
Set list: Doors Shut, Underneath the water mirror, Over the Mountain, Creatures of the Western City, Fields of Grass, Rollercoaster Mind, Corporate Heaven, Dim Light Hour, Breakout
Fuzz Manta
RamGoats
Next up was Ram Goats, a local reggae band, who play most years. They usually take a long time to set up and play over time and seeing as now we were already behind schedule an hour by the time Ram Goats start! Anyway, they only play for about and hour and are pretty damn cool and rootsy, which I like. They had a female vocalist on a few tracks. A very good band!
Set List: Jamaica Kincaid- Tomorrow, Bablyon will Fall, Sea of Dub, Ramsey blues, Runjabi, Send Sweet Love, No Fuzz, Morning Glory, Part of me-Thorlife Toast, One Sweet Dream, Away
Next up was the local Grateful Dead tribute band, The Diff. These guys are very good at what they do and have played all 9 Kildemose festivals from what I understand and have often been the last band playing to the late morning hours. The last two years, my band, the Øresund Space Collective have taken over this honor but also the burden of possibly playing for nearly no one at 3 in the morning. The Diff started off quite late. They were suppose to start at 22:30 and started at 23:45. Anyway, they played a cool set including one of my favourite Dead songs, West LA Fadeway. They cut their set short though so that we would not have to play too too late, so they did not play Dark Star or Turn on your love light which were on the set list.
Set List: Bertha, Samson and Delilah, Althea, Playing in the band, Jack Straw, Sugaree, Cold Rain and Snow, US Blues, Sugar magnolia, West LA Fadeway, Scarlet Begonia, He’s Gone, Tennessee Red
Sunset at Kildemose!
It was about 1:40 by the time we had all the ØSC gear ready and our 3 guitar attack on this night. We were all in a great mood and it was not 3:30 in the morning like last year so there was 60-80 people ready for some space rock. One guy even travelled all the way from halle in Germany to see us. Thanks. Anyway, we played some pretty intense stuff to start off with Thomas on bass and Jocke would play second. The sound on the stage was great and the front sound I am told was as well. We really were flying and the people were totally into it with the guys from Causa Sui and Fuzz Manta right up in the front. We played about 1 hour and 50 minutes until 3:30 and the sound man wanted to get some rest so we had to stop even though the people and the band really wanted to play some more. What a great night.
Set List: Kildemose Festival jam 2009, On the path to Enlightenment, Grassy Faces, Jam for the East German OSC Fan, We gotta get outta this place
OSC fans at 3 in the morning!
CLICK HERE to hear the whole concert!
Day 2
It was damn hot in the tent and I only got 3 hours sleep from like 4 until 7. I still laid down until 9 and went and had some food. I think many of the others stayed up and partied until 5-6 in the morning as there is always a core of hardcore people up all night. Nice to chat with different people in the morning and so many people told me how much they loved the show last night, which was really nice to hear as I also had a great feeling about it.
Today was a different program with some bands that did not play last year and some that did. It all started off at 13:00 with Marie Louise Munch with Troels Bech and Camilla Munck Fantastic female singers in this 3 piece band. Light acoustic Americana like music with a country edge at times. The small crowd really liked them though and a good way to start the day.
Set List: New Love Begin, Songbird, Rosa is my Name, The birds fly up, Rest, All time in the World, Dreams on Dreams
I saw very little of the country band Homesick Hank but people seem to like them.
Homesick Hank
Lotus Krokus
Lotus Krokus was up next and they started like 1½ hours late. This was interesting stuff. It is very personal music, all acoustic and all sung in Danish with long explanations’ about all the different songs. They used acoustic guitars, mandolin, harp, sitar and were accompanied by tabla drums on most songs. Very chill out and some very cool songs. People were all sitting on the grass in front of the stage and the weather was fantastic. I think they played about an hour.
Set List: Madho- Lal, Syvsover, Ruhi, Du Nat, Havblik, Natterravn, Camelot, Flodens Stemme, Ragtime, Danser med Snefnug
Next up was Nikolai Vilhem Tell, whom I had wanted to see for some time now and finally… Very nice people. This was really cool 60’s style psych with two guitars and some really excellent songs. I really like the two longer more spacey tracks as although they had two guitars they more or less played similar stuff and no lead guitar or psychy guitar really, which I think would have added a lot. Nikolai writes some really great songs though like Nobody knows, Now is the Time, etc… cool set.
Set List: I don’t think you know me at All, Looking behind, Nobody Knows, Am I still Sleeping, Now is the time, Soulless Woman, The forgot tale of Kasper Hauser, Question no, 4, You told me, Maybe another Day, Bye Bye
Nikolai
The Setting Son
The Setting Son was next and they were looking spiffy and had a female back up singer this time which did not have any of the other times I had seen them. They were tight and doing their Golden Dawn inspired 60’s rock. They really need to psych out a bit as this would add some diversity to the set. Let Heinz, play some longer crazy solos, etc… They are always fun to see and people have a good time. My friend Ralph was here to do the sound.
Set List: Out of Tune, Laughing Again, The Setting Son, Obsession, Fool my Heart, Soulmate, Le Sacre Coeur, Winter turned to Spring, I Wish, Depression, All I want is You, Mama Baby, Desperate Soul,
Cherry Overdrive, a crowd favorite played a totally rocking set and some cool new songs as well.!
Next up was Highway Child, which seem to be becoming one of the favourite bands of the festival as people were totally into it and packing the front of the stage. The band was just back from the Duna Jam in Sardinia and perhaps this inspired their set as they had a lot of energy and did some really cool jamming and played almost all older songs. I think they played a bit over an hour. Great set.
Set List: Kick out the Jam, just like You, Change your Life, Take you Down, Love for Sale>Jam, Once is Once, Dear Girl, Turn me On, Spaciator>Jam, Highway Child
Highway Child
Like the Øresund Space Collective, Causa Sui have been closing one of the nights for the third year in a row but this was the first time ever they actually started at the scheduled time of 12:30! Wow… It had actually never happened at this festival. Amazing. Anyway, Causa Sui were psyched to play and got down to business with a 90 minute set of mostly all songs from their Summer Sessions Vol 1-3. Volumes 2 and 3 had just come out this week and looked really cool. They did not have the sax player with them though. Some of the new stuff was a lot like Colour Haze with electronics. I don’t know the full set list as the tracks are all instrumental and they did not write one down. A good crowd stayed awake or came down to the stage to rock out with the band.
Causa Sui
That was all the music for that night so the party moved into the bar where Highway Child were the crazy mothers and they were still up drinking beers at 9 the next morning. Fun festival. All the bands had amazing sound and Jan the sound man is very professional and really knows how to make a great sound. He is amazing… thanks Jan. Poor sound would really ruin everything… I highly recommend this festival. Look for more pics and soundboard audio on the festival web site soon.
See the link below for even more pictures!
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=90455&id=668857671&l=db5c82a66c
Reviewed by Scott Heller