My first festival
The beginning of 1994 saw my transformation into a full-blown indie pop freak with a burning love for small Swedish bands. And what place better to go in Sweden to discover new indie music than the Emmaboda festival? The only problem was that by this time I didn't have any friends that shared my taste in music, and there was nobody that wanted to go with me to a small indie festival in the forests of Småland. I was home in Borås for the summer and even though I wasn't all that young my mother didn't want me going alone, but I refused to let that stop me, so finally in a desperate attempt to find someone to go with I actually called the local newspaper in Borås to see if they were covering the festival. As it turned out they weren't, so I quickly offered to write about it for them - so then I had to go.
In 1994 the Emmaboda festival was in June and the Hultsfred festival in August, I think it was in 1996 that they switched months. Emmaboda was by this time quite small; it was only one day, 15 bands and maybe 300 visitors, there were only two portapotties, one water tap and one food stand. I didn't have a tent, but I had spoken to the festival organiser who said that if I didn't find someone to share a tent with I could sleep in the small booth with the sound equipment...
I found my way to the festival, which was in a quite small field with two stages and where the tents were put up right behind the big stage. I started talking to two guys whose tent was too small to house me too, but they kindly offered to let me keep my bag in there.
I felt like I was in heaven: everybody in the place liked just about the same music as me, people dressed according to their taste in music (girls: knee socks, short skirts, hair pins in their bob cut hair, boys: too small t shirts, preferably second hand, often with a gas station brand printed on it), everybody was really nice and friendly and I had 15 concerts ahead of me.
I don't remember the order of the bands, but I saw them all, made notes and talked a little to some of the bands for my article. As soon as one concert ended people turned around, walked a few meters over to the other stage and the next gig started.
The bands that were playing were, in alphabetical order: bob hund, Brainpool, The Cardigans, Cloudberry Jam, Elvert Underground, Green, Kurt Olvars Rebeller, Sonic Surf City, Stevepops, Superwed, Urban Chant, Wagon, Waterbug, Yvonne and Zoobox. Some of them weren't exactly great (and weren't long-lived), but others became favourites of mine, like Cloudberry Jam, Green and Yvonne. Yet others were just in the beginning of a great career, like The Cardigans and Brainpool.
I was walking around by myself and talked to lots of people, among them some of the members of Cloudberry Jam and a friend of theirs, and this actually laid the ground for a friendship that lasted for years. A funny thing that happened that I still remember clearly was that I was talking to Magnus Fridh, the singer in Green, and the guitarist in Elvert Underground came up to us and asked if we were a couple. We said no, and he replied "Too bad, you look like a perfect match. If you get married, we'll play for free at your wedding!" and walked off to the bar. I later learned that this guy was Ola Broquist, one of the founders of the booking agency Luger, so maybe I can get a good deal for a band if I ever get married...
Before the night was over I had made new friends, found new favourite bands, and also bumped into a classmate from my law studies in Uppsala, whose boyfriend was working at the festival, so I could spend the few hours of the night before my early morning train home at his parents' house. So: all in all a great first festival!
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(Jag minns att de var väldigt nöjda med att de sprang snyggt i den här videon. :)
(Hittar tyvärr inte den fina videon med Jennie i badkar med gummianka.)
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