TICKETS AVAILABLE FROM DECEMBER 1

NEW DESIGN PROFILE

The first acts for next year’s Øya Festival are now booked and ready. This means that we, the staff at Øya HQ, have started to mentally hone in on 2010. Festival passes are now available and cost 1940,- NOK + tax 55,- NOK. Our new design is also in place. During the coming months our 2010 profile will develop and also surprise you along the way, we’re sure. The man behind the design is the legendary Are Kleivan, who is a highly experienced album and book cover designer – and lest we forget that he has also designed some of the greatest ever Norwegian concert posters!

The first artists who will perform in the Medieval Park in August 2010 are now booked and ready. However, this is just a small pre-taste of next year’s comprehensive, varied and awesome Øya bill. There’s every reason to start looking forward to next year’s festival, because you won’t get this much quality bang for your hard-earned buck anywhere else. We will release several strong acts, both foreign and domestic, during the coming weeks.

For now, you can look forward to seven hot musical experiences in the park this summer. Serena Maneesh will be returning to the festival where their international adventure started. This time around, John Olav Nilsen & Gjengen will be performing on a large stage. Major Lazer will be giving their first performance in Norway at Øya in August. This will be the first time The Gaslight Anthem ever perform in Oslo. Lindstrøm & Christabelle, with an album due for release in January, will be giving their first co-performance ever and will also be bringing the club sound out into the park. Both Altaar and CCTV have previously played on Club Night, but now they’re ready to take the next step out into our favorite park.

We can also inform you that we’re working on presenting a better and more exciting festival area in the Medieval Park next year. The Øya administration is currently looking into new solutions, and we’re looking forward to presenting these to you as soon as a decision is reached. We also wish to adopt an even stronger focus on the festival visitor experience, and that entails that the number of guests will be slightly lowered next year, not increased. In 2009, festival passes sold out in May, so there’s no reason to delay your ticket purchase if you’re planning to be there for the entire festival.

The festival pass includes four days in the park as well as Club Night. The Øya Festival 2010 will offer numerous wicked musical experiences, both in the Medieval Park and at clubs in downtown Oslo. Among other things, there will be a handful of Nighttime Øya events featuring party concepts and concerts that’ll be just right for hot August nights.
Buy your tickets at Ticketmaster.no and by calling ph. +47 815 33 133.

SERENA MANEESH (NO)
Serena Maneesh will be returning to the Øya Festival, the place where their international adventure started. Not many Norwegian bands have been graced with the amount of attention they received after their album debut in 2005. Several American media outlets praised Emil Nikolaisen’s ensemble sky high, but the way Pitchfork embraced them perhaps stands out the most. The majority of Norwegian media outlets ignored Serena’s performance at Øya that year, but the Pitchfork journalist was immediately hooked. A few weeks later, when he published a rave review of the album, Serena got new fans all over the world. We also remember how other international guests who visited Øya in 2005 were highly impressed with the band’s mighty walls of guitar sounds and tender songs. After having been absent from the limelight for a while, they’re now getting ready to sneak into our collective awareness once again. They recently signed with none other than 4AD, a record company that has done its best to ensure legendary status for acts like Pixies, Blonde Redhead, The Birthday Party, Lush and Cocteau Twins, among others. This spring, a new Serena Maneesh album will be out, so get ready for more beautiful melodies shrouded in noisy guitars – or, like Uncut put it when their previous album came out: “One of the most intriguing walls of sound since My Bloody Valentine circa Isn’t Anything.”
MYSPACE

MAJOR LAZER (JM/UK/US)
The American Wesley “Diplo” Pentz and the Brit Dave “Switch” Taylor have – each on their own – been involved in the making of the most creative and innovative club music from this dwindling decade. They have both cooperated closely with M.I.A. and Santigold as songwriters and producers, and through their DJ-ing they have contributed to familiarizing the Western audience with Brazilian funk carioca, Angolan kuduro and Argentinian neo-cumbia. Together, these two musical soul mates turn into the war hero Major Lazer, a fictional Jamaican commando soldier with a wicked lazer gun instead of a right arm. In between battles against vampires, zombies, mummies and similar creatures, the awesome super hero likes to party and do a little dancing, preferably with the debut album Guns Don’t Kill People, Lazers Do pumping through the speakers. This eclectic and highly danceable project was recorded in Jamaica, with both local talents and international names behind the mike. Worth mentioning are Turbulence, Jahdan Blakkamore, Vybz Kartel, T.O.K., Mr. Vegas, Mr. Lexx, Ms. Thing and Busy Signal, as well as more familiar names like Mapei, Santigold, Amanda Blank and Nina Sky. There are elements from several decades, continents and genres, but it’s worth noting that digital reggae and dancehall are the main focus points of the album, which therefore has turned it into a varied and uncompromising mixture with an extreme commercial appeal. Just who Major Lazer, Diplo and Switch will be bringing along to Øya in 2010 isn’t an easy guess, as they have many to choose from, but the gig will definitely be wicked and groovy. As the major himself would have put it: Pon de Floor!
MYSPACE

THE GASLIGHT ANTHEM (US)
With the release of their second album, The 59 Sound, The Gaslight Anthem from New Jersey were behind one of the best attempts in a long time at making plain American rock. With strong material and a sound that leans on names like Springsteen, Petty, The Hold Steady and Replacements, they join a musical tradition that tells stories of street dust, bottled beer, lost love and long work weeks. The two first artists they also make sure to refer to both lyrically and musically. Singer and songwriter Brian Fallon has proven a reliable and talented songsmith and storyteller who will be able to carry on the so-called heartland rock. We’re really looking forward to presenting The Gaslight Anthem in Oslo for the very first time. Come the summer, the band will also have released their third album. A while back they stated that this album will be a bit more punk-ish than the previous one. In any case, we and many others await it anxiously, and we imagine the Medieval Park crowd will go wild when The Gaslight Anthem fire up the highlights from The 59 Sound.
MYSPACE

JOHN OLAV NILSEN OG GJENGEN (NO)
The past couple of years we’ve been hearing a lot about the new wave of bands from Bergen, of which an impressive number hails from the suburban area of Loddefjord. It has, however, become apparent that John Olav Nilsen & Gjengen are at the crest of this wave, both with regards to what they deliver on albums and on stage. Their debut album from 2009, For sant til å være godt [Too True to Be Good], has received praise from music media outlets and newspapers all over the country, and several gave it a top rating. National newspaper Dagsavisen recently stated that it is one of the best Norwegian albums of the decade. Webzine Groove.no said that the album is “born from a glowing surplus of energy, and packed with delightful desperation”, while cultural mag Natt & Dag described it as “passionate and enormously catchy contemporary rock.” At the same time, their fan base is increasing by the week. In a Norwegian context, John Olav Nilsen & Gjengen are viewed as the flag carriers of Norwegian rock with Norwegian lyrics, a tradition that includes names such as Jokke & Valentinerne, The Aller Værste and others of the first generation of truly great rock acts that sang in the native tongue.
In 2009, John Olav Nilsen & Gjengen performed on the Vika stage at Øya. In accordance with tradition we’ll be moving a Norwegian act from one of our small stages to one of our bigger ones. In 2010, this act will be John Olav Nilsen & Gjengen, primarily because they have strengthened our faith in that Norwegian rock in the native tongue will be alive and well for many years to come.
MYSPACE

LINDSTRØM & CHRISTABELLE (NO)
Earlier, Hans Petter Lindstrøm has given great performances at Øya both together with Prins Thomas and on his own. Now he’s ready to release an album together with the singer Christabelle, whom he has cooperated with several times over the past decade. The album Real Life Is No Cool will be out in January, and draws a lot on 80s pop and soul, though without becoming dated. Hans Petter Lindstrøm’s more progressive background and his nose for disco both shine through. The starting point for the cooperation between Lindstrøm and Christabelle was their common preference for acts like Grace Jones and Vanity 6, among others. We have no trouble imagining that this can be just as groovy and brilliant in a club setting as at Øya next summer. Lindstrøm is one of our most recognized electronica producers and one of the pioneers of the Norwegian club scene. He received both rave reviews and a Norwegian Grammy for his solo album Where You Go I Go Too from 2008. There is no reason that this album should be received any differently. We bet that it’s Lindstrøm & Christabelle that’ll get you out on the dance floor in the summer of 2010.
MYSPACE

CCTV (NO)
The first sentence on the Urørt web page of this great act goes as follows: “CCTV originally hail from Haugesund, a city founded on herring, jazz and heroin, but are currently based in Oslo.” The band plays an elegant kind of pop music mixed with elements of indie, slices of psychedelia and sprinkles of electronica. It is not without reason that this band has gotten a bit of a buzz going at certain select clubs in the Norwegian capital. They are not afraid of being neither dark nor catchy, something which was easy to hear when they became the Urørt Pick of the Week on national radio channel P3 this fall. Front man Shaun Curtis and the rest of the crew have now embarked on the labors that in time will become their debut album. If you don’t get the chance before then, the Øya Festival will provide you with an excellent opportunity to get to know this band.
MYSPACE

ALTAAR (NO)
Perhaps there aren’t too many people who are familiar with doom and drone orchestra Altaar yet, but those who have seen the band live are mighty impressed. The line-up includes names such as Sven Ove Toft (various noise acts), Espen Hångård (Killl and NoPlaceToHide), Andreas Tylden and Kennteh Lamond (both from JR Ewing). Their dark and syrupy doomsday rock carries a distinct whiff of sulfur and tar. Among their inspirational sources are Philip Glass and Bathory. Altaar mauled the ear drums of a curious crowd during Club Night at Blå last year, and we quickly decided that this was something we wanted to present in the Medieval Park in 2010. They recently released their first cassette tape (!), entitled Dødsønske [Death Wish]. On it are five songs of “blasphemous funeral ambient doom”. This summer they will attempt to turn our otherwise light and merry minds into pitch-dark nightmare machines. We who have preference for syrupy quality grit are looking forward to it like a bunch of out-of-control, little kids.
MYSPACE