The Award Show P3 Guld 2011

As has become traditional, I watched the award show P3 Guld, last night with a few good friends. It continues to be one of the only award shows I find worth watching. It's quirky, very Danish, and is about music that is not Beyoncé. Finally, the show consists mainly of a string of good live perfomances and four awards. No fuss. Just the good bits.

The prize for Breakthrough of the Year went to blog-favourites Turboweekend, and I certainly won't complain about that... Though, I believe you can always argue on what level they actually had their breakthrough last year. With the remix of Trouble Is by Joker and Tiësto, they certainly raised some international eyebrows last year. Here's the one by Tiësto:



Talent of Year went to Agnel Obel. Hmmm. Not really my cup of tea, though I can certainly hear the talent, and I appreciate the novel sound. Somewhat too art'y for my taste, I guess. I'd probably have voted for Kellermensch for holding the rock flag high. Here's their Springsteen-like Army Ants:



The Hit of Year - as voted by the listeners - went to Volbeat for Fallen. I am not much for popularity contests, as I seldomly like what the majority likes; but fair enough, Volbeat is party-hardrock, and that's ok by me. The nominees were these 25 songs, including two hits by rising popstar Vinnie Who. After the performance below by Vinnie Who last night I'd have thought it fair that he won at least one award.



Very, very stylish funky pop. I also applaud that he also understands that live music is about giving the audience a show.

The main P3 Guld award went to Fallulah. Ok, I guess. Her performance last night was quite good.



Hmmm, well. Ok, catchy. Well, she can actually sing and it's infinitely more pleasant to listen to than standard American/English pop. But - I was really impressed by Vinnie Who, so I must say that he was my favourite here, as well.

...

And finally, tadaaah! My main prize was a great new (for me at least...?) song, performed live by another blog favourite Veto!

Reevalution - Turboweekend

I recently put down Danish synth/electro-rockers Turboweekend as less than surprising, and lacking something. Silas Bjerregaard, the singer is clearly gifted; however the singles, I'd noticed on the radio, and zipped past on my Last.FM-profile, were quite good - but a bit too tidy, too constructed, too pretty for my taste. I may be simple creature, but in both electronic and rock-music I generally look for something unsettling, something unexpected and raw, an instrument, a passage, or a driving beat, that oozes energy. Incidentally, that is, I guess, as close as I can get to a personal definition of rock.

I wasn't particularly happy about putting Turboweekend down, though. They fit pretty much in the sweetspot of my current musical tendencies; and I found myself digging through their back catalogue over the next few days. I'm pleased that that musical journey led me to reevaluate my earlier verdict.

Listening through the material from their two albums, Night Shift (2007) and Ghost Of A Chance (2009), I found myself liking the lighter style and faster beats on their debut-album more. Listen, and take look at, the pleasingly naïve and refreshing Wash Out.



Given my preferences, this contrasts to the more somber tone of Ghost Of A Chance, exemplified here with the single After Hours.



Now, at this point I happened to watch a recording of the excellent show Backstage (on DR2 - by our nice friends, the Danish Broadcasting Corporation) with Turboweekend (and rappers UFO Yepha). The programme seeks to expose the best of current Danish live-music, by setting up a friendly "battle" between two Danish bands, also requiring them to create a novel act together. This had lead to many interesting, amusing, and also splendid moments of art. I'll try to get back to that later. For now, let me focus on Turboweekend. Simply put, live, they add that spark of energy and power, that I so missed in their recordings. Listen to, and in particular, take a look at their rendition of After Hours on the show.



Interestingly - speaking pure audio - the live-version is not radically different, actually. Mostly, the vocals are sung more powerfully and freely; but the energy that their stage-performance exudes makes a great difference for me. The intonation, and visual underlining of the line "From my window - I've got a clear view of the towers." simply drags me in and requires me to feel the beat and vocals much more strongly.

Their other single-performance on Backstage, of Holiday - also from Ghost Of A Chance, displays a similar amount of great energy, that just blasts through the screen. (It really helps also, that the Backstage-audience for this programme is really enthusiastic - something which is sadly not the case, every time.)



Splendid. Turboweekend is on my plus-list now. And incidentally - damn, I look forward to having more time to go see live-music again...