Rough translation made 'on the go' (no not gooo
)
SID, LIES AND CD'S
For one night Stockholm changed into heaven for all SID-nerds. We gathered to enjoy the unique Commodore 64 music. One of us returned home with a lifechanging insight as a bonus.
Back in Time Live 2008: I love you.
I know it's early in the morning. Too early considering the time I got home. But I neither want to or am able to sleep. I can only think about how I the night before crowded with hundreds of equal Commodore 64 lovers. I can actually not remember the last time I was in a place where everybody where so happy, openhearted and welcoming. I have neither experienced my beloved Commodore 64 music in the same way earlier. Considering that, it's not strange that I refuse to snooze. I just want to stay in bed and live through that powerful SID-evening over and over again.
THE LOOPING DUTCHMAN
Kolingsborg, September 13th at 19:43. The light is dimmed and the backgroundmusic killed. The PA-system is put on and the arranger Andreas Wallström gets the audience on fire with a short but energetic speach. Hereafter the premiere act of the evening, the dutchman Reyn Ouwehand, enters the stage. A not so thin, nonfat, 35 year old, bohemicly dressed in a hat, blueshaded glasses and a bearded chin. He is hardly on my top list of the greatest C64 composers but his work as a 16 year old debutant with
Last Ninja 3 almost reached up to Ben Daglish original music and Matt Grays sequel. A little bit more than 300 SID nerds in the audience cheers and applaudes and carefully builds a concave semicircle from the edge of the stage.
I have of course seen the Youtube clips from earlier C64 events but still, I am knocked to the floor. Reyn is godgifted musician. He takes requests like â€
Giana Sisters in polka style!†from the audience. Then he improvisingly builds the tune with the help of a looper. First he puts on the drumbeat, then the synth and lastly bass and guitar. Sometimes by the order synth-drums-bass-guitar. Reyn is totally connected with the music: closes his eyes, stomps the beat with his foot and wags his upper body to the beat. He is sweating when the tones kind of floods out and is just opening his eyes when he hits the looper with his foot and locks a sling of music before moving on to the next instrument. Finally a complete rendition of the tune has been built up during 10 minutes in front of a sometimes giggeling and sometimes silently gazing audience. At the end he peals layer by layer until the only thing you can hear is a subtle melody from the keyboard that slowly slowly descends into silence. It's powerful, makes you want to move, beautiful and not to forget impressive. Reyn does this trick about 5 or 6 times during his one-hour-show.
Bubble Bobble in reaggae style.
Last Ninja 3 in â€his own styleâ€.
Druid II as Jean-Michel Jarre would have interpret it. It never gets boring. I know then and there that this must be the highlight of the evening.
QUESTION GETS ANSWERED
It's a little bit sad for the fun gang Danceaway – a danceremix guy and his two mates playing songs straight from the laptop and dances around dressed in shiny shirts, afro wigs and a cowboyhat. It's a little bit to early and a little bit to sober in the audience to make Danceaway get the welcome that they maybe deserve. I'm standing next to the stage writing down my notations in my notebook. Martin Lindell, head of information at the Computergame industry [direct translation;sorry if I am not giving him the right title] taps me on the shoulder and whispers that Fred Gray is standing just behind me. I peak over the shoulder with a badly hidden curiosity and, yes. There is the uncle with the white hair and a little crumb back standing. Two decades ago he composed chordfilled
Enigma Force and enigmatic
Mutants. It feels pretty big to have him hanging around in the middle of the crowd, not to mention so close to me. Talk about direct contact with the fans.
A guy waving a CD peers through the crowd up to Fred Gray and asks for an autograph. Fred signs while Danceaway plays on. The journalist in me remembers that I should ask Fred how it feels that people, 20 years later, approaches him asking for an autograph but the music beats all attempts to a conversation. I write the question in my notepad and gives the pen to Gray. He immediately writes: â€It is fun†and underlines â€fun†with a lot of lines. Then he contemplates for a second and adds â€still†at the end. This notepad I will never throw away.
THE DISAPPEARING JOURNALIST
It is then I realize that my journalistic fasade is a lie. I am first and foremost here as a fan. Suddenly I know what I have to do. I leave Danceaway to do his thing and runs to the shop. There are some of Reyn Ouwehands albums left – pfew! - I'm digging in my pants for all the nickles I can find. 110 Swedish crowns means 10 crowns short. I sprint back to Martin Lindell and begs for a gold coin, goes back to buy Reyn's album and find him sitting on a table close to the stage having a breather after his gig. On the way I borrowed a Marker pen from a finnish guy collecting autographs (â€Good luck with your own collection!â€). I give the pen and CD to Reyn, thank him for the show and say that I really need his autograph.
Reyn jokingly says: â€Now you've lost your professionality†while he signs the booklet. In my already magical notepad Reyn also writes his e-mail and post adress to his church/home/studio outside Amsterdam. I'm trying to behave somewhat sober allthough all I want is to bounce and dance of joy. A cola later Reyn is up on stage again – this time playing the keyboards in the rockish band 6581.
Newly formed 6581 emphasises what bands like danish Press Play on Tape and the SID'80s already have proven; rock and SID is the perfect combo. The setlist is a veritable bag of sweets with some of the most beloved C64 songs. The style is raw and rocky and Andreas drums as if he would be in the intro of
The Muppet Show; he hits the crash until it folds away from the drumset so he has to use all his length to reach it at the end of
Arkanoid. The highlights are heavy
Aztec Challenge (think Metallica
Sad but True) and the magnificent
Central Park from
Last Ninja 2. Now even the most careful audience members starts to move their hips while the more enthusiastic swirls around in a mini moshpit and yes – there are actually three persons stagediving. At the end of the show Andreas invites Fred Gray up as a guest player on the keyboards. He enters the stage with the people cheering and applauding as he helps to interpret his own magnum opus
Mutants. Epic.
After the gig from 6581 I rest my feet in the stairs of the upper floor. A door springs open and out from it a newly showered and speeded Andreas Wallström suddenly bounces out. I thank him for the show and tells him that he looked hysterically happy out on stage. He underlines that the joy definitely not was an act and that he alltogether could have passed the shower till later, really – cause he is on his way to the dancefloor to jump to Jeroen Tel's (
Eliminator, Myth, Supremacy) DJ-set.
GOING HOME; INSIGHT
Time is 1 am, or more. I am happy close to exhaustion after all impressions. Even if the music is the best and Jeroen Tel is an awfully charismatic DJ I don't feel like dancing. So I walk out in the night and begins the journey home. Walking towards the subway entrance at Slussen with hundreds of SID melodies bouncing like popcorn in my brain. In my bag I have the notepad where Fred Gray answered my one-question-interview and Reyn has written his post adress. I can feel how his CD vibrates of energy next to the notepad. At home I fall asleep with Reyn's live version of Green Beret on my mind. That, and the insight that there are more important things in life than professionalism.
