A-Ha - Final Final Final Concert @ Oslo Spectrum (01/05/2016)

The Crowd of 10000 waits for the band to come on-stage.

Setlist

I've been losing you
Cry Wolf
Move to Memphis
Stay on these Roads
The Swing of Things
Cast in Steel
Crying in the Rain
Mother Nature goes to heaven
We're looking for the whales
Velvet
Lifelines
Here I stand and face the rain

The show was recorded for yet another final concert DVD.

Scoundrel days
Sycamore leaves
She's humming a tune
Foot of the Mountain
Hunting High and Low

Encore#1
The Sun Always Shines on TV
Under the Makeup
The Living Daylights

Encore#2
Take on Me




Highlights: Hunting High and Low, The Sun Always Shines on TV, Lifelines, Sycamore Leaves, Scoundrel Days, Take on Me
Notable Omissions: Seemingly non stop July, Memorial Beach, Butterfly Butterfly, Nothing is keeping me here, I wish I cared, White Dwarf

I saw A-Ha live not because I am the biggest fan, indeed the band would struggle to break into my top 20, but because I was looking for things to do in the area prior to Eurovision and had been stalking my favourite bands as they toured Europe and settled on A-Ha. I have all their albums and love many of their songs and Morten Harket also has one of my favourite voices in the history of music, only really beaten by Freddie Mercury and Jockim Berg (that other Scandinavian legend), both musical geniuses who write much more complex and denser material than A-Ha could manage.

A-Ha are far more successful then most Australians realise, with a huge following in Europe and South American they've sold over 100 million albums and are Norway's biggest selling band. They burst onto the scene in the mid 1980's with Take On Me, a huge worldwide hit, made popular by an awesome music video, which also gave me my favourite countdown memory when Molly Meldrum introduced them for the 1st time saying they were the next big thing. Their follow up hits The Sun Always Shines on TV and Hunting High and Low were also massive and they are still the only non US/UK act to write a theme for a Bond film, The Living Daylights.

There was a a lot of interesting animation on screen.

A-Ha's music is quite diverse within the realm of synth-pop. Their 80's albums suffer from poor production, weak tracks which dated poorly and are very erratic and incomplete. Indeed I struggle to listen to most 80's albums as once you take the singles out the quality degenerates quickly, so they are not alone there. Their popularity dwindled as the 90's came around and they went to America to record some of their darkest and best material. Out went the synth's and they recorded dark, moody, melancholic music with acoustic guitars, minor keys and that Scandinavian angst I love. They soon split up, unable to have a hit outside of Norway where they are revered. Morten Harket is also quite a strong Christian, having to choose between a singing career and entering ministry he choose music. He used the time to find himself, recording some very personal music about his Christian journey. I'm sure I would find meaning in it if I could understand Norwegian. His first solo effort Wild Seed is in English and filled with personal songs. Fortunately after his Norwegian efforts he stuck to English which is a better language for singing.

Cry Wolf - Images of wolves appear on the sreen

The band reformed in 2000 with one of the best comeback releases by an 80s band in Minor Earth, Major Sky. It spawned hits across Europe and they started touring again. The modern reworking of their music is best described as Radiohead without the cool, a more adult contemporary feel. They mix acoustic guitars, electric piano, effects, harmonies and Scandinavian minor keys to give it an edge and the mixes are very pure, with a very polished, perfected Scandinavian feel. As the 2000's wore on the quality of their releases started to fluctuate culminating with their best album Foot of the Mountain, where they nailed synth pop for the last time. They saw the writing on the wall, and Morten Harket went on to continue his solo career, writing music which was better then most A-Ha albums. However for some reason they reformed in 2015, released a sub par album which was followed by a another tour. There was no need, but fans didn't complain. The last time apparently.

I had low expectations going into the concert as I believe all live music is destined to be crap unless it features heavy electric guitar. The early highlight was the sound guy plugging his phone into the main mix, and then the phone rang. He couldn't turn it off straight away, I think he was figuring out how to do it without getting that whooshing sound you hear. We were then treated to this weird support act. They were a cross between The Cure and The Cranberries. Kind of a Norwegian folk / pop act with a dark Gothic twist. They had 2 violinists, a keyboardist, acoustic guitar but no drummer, just some girl doing harmonies and randomly hitting a bass drum. I wish I knew what they were called. All their songs were about someone coming to get me, or something coming to an end. They all sounded the same but were strangely haunting. They sung in English but spoke Norwegian between tracks. I think her Mum was in the audience as she screamed hi.

A-Ha eventually came on to thunderous applause and they were pretty much as I expected, a bit, bland and boring at first. This is really due to their set list as it mostly focuses on their 80's material which people want to hear but their post 2000 music is considerably better. The lights were great, and the video sequences behind them were also engaging. The early songs left no room for audience participation though and Morten was struggling to hit the high notes early on some of the better songs like Stay on these Roads. There was a lot of banter with the audience, most of it in Norwegian, and occasionally he'd break into English, telling us we should learn Norwegian for it is a beautiful language, much better than Danish as it sounds right. Girls would randomly call out to Morten, "Marry me", apparently he was quite the hunk in his younger days and was desired by all Norwegian women.

Lifelines - The crowd turn the torch on their phones on.

After the early numbers were over, the concert moved into their post 2000 material and slowly improved. In lifelines, the audience turned the lights on their phones on and shone them into the air, and as a result we felt more engaged with the song and the crowd sang along. Scoundrel days sounded surprisingly fresh live with the electric piano and edgy guitar working well in a live setting. Sycamore leaves featured edgy guitar and busy percussion and was another up tempo number which kept things moving. Foot of the Mountain is one of their best songs with a killer synth riff but the synth's weren't loud enough in the mix and it just wasn't possible to reproduce the studio sound live which was a pity as it was one of the songs I was most looking forward to.

It was at about this time that a curious thing happened to me. The woman next to me had bought along her disabled mother and was preparing to leave (or so it seemed). As she setup her wheelchair and helped her mother into it, I noticed she left her sweater behind. It looked nice so instinctively I ran after them to give them the sweater. The woman grabbed me, gave me a hug and a kiss and then said something to me in Norwegian I didn't understand at the time. It left me wondering if this was another Norwegian cultural custom I wasn't aware of - returning lost property results in a hug and kiss. Last time I came to Oslo I had been chatting to 2 Norwegian girls in a pub for a while only for them to announce after an hour or so that they were going to leave to have dinner with their parents. Who has dinner with their parents on a Saturday night? Australian girls just say they're tired or busy if they don't want to see / talk to you. Turns out Norwegians do have dinner with their family on Saturday night as I saw them. As for the women sitting next to me it turned out they were just going to the bathroom.  So I really have no idea why I got the hug. Maybe I looked hug deprived.

Here I Stand and Face the Rain - This song features Christian
imagery and sounds (a choir) hence the church windows.

The encores were easily the highlight of the concert. Hunting High and Low resulted in an audience sing a long with audience participation sections getting us to repeat large sections of the song. They returned for the Sun Always Shines on TV which they totally nailed, hitting all the right notes and again getting the audience to sing along and was my highlight of the night. Under the makeup was a slower number from their latest album which was really just a filler to bring the mood down before hitting us with The Living Daylights, their contribution to the Bond film franchise and again showcased the bands ability to get the audience singing along to sections of the song. And just as they bought the mood up again they went off-stage and the chanting and clapping started again for them to return and play their biggest hit Take on Me. These guys aren't stupid, they're Scandinavian, and know you should always play your biggest hits at the end of a concert. The cameraman got close up shots of the keyboardist when he played the riff. The song was quite good live with everyone singing along but not quite up to the standard of the original release.

So I'm glad I'm saw them, I certainly wouldn't recommend going across the world for the sole purpose of seeing them, it was only because I was in the area that I dropped in to do so. The venue was great, easy to get to, efficiently run, security was tight, you just can't buy bottled water there and there were plenty of tourists in town because of this concert and Adele playing in town the same night.

I'll be seeing some other concerts later on in my trip.