LIVE REVIEW

Seigmen in Oslo 2015

Sentrum Scene, Olso, Norway

10th and 11th April 2015

Written by Silke Jochum

Published at Reflections of Darkness


In Norway everybody is talking about SEIGMEN these days! After nearly eighteen years, a great new album is published on April 13th called ‘Enola’. In March came a tremendous black and white SEIGMEN book with pictures made by the amazing Norwegian photographer Bjørn Opsahl including a gentle and deeply interesting biography written by Arvid Skancke-Knutsen, a well-known Norwegian music journalist. To celebrate the comeback of SEIGMEN the museum of pop-music, Popsenteret, in Oslo dedicated a whole floor to the band. The exhibition is called “Seigmen 1992 – 2014”, showing the history of SEIGMEN through articles, some band equipment and interviews of Alex Møklebust and Bjørn Opsahl which were filmed a few weeks ago. In a red room, really beautifully arranged, are shown some of Bjørns fantastic live pictures and band portraits.

 And last, but not least there is a SEIGMEN tour that has been sold out right away in almost every city they are going to play a show.

A few days ago I travelled to Norway to take pictures at the opening shows of this SEIGMEN tour. The first concert has been located in Drammen at “Union Scene”, but unfortunately it had to be cancelled a few hours before the show was supposed to start. Kim Ljung suffered from terrible migraine again and wasn’t able to go on stage. That must have been a very hard and sad decision to be made by him and the band, but it definitely was the right decision!


Next night, the first of two sold-out shows in Oslo was up, and SEIGMEN really rocked the “Sentrum Scene”! After the support bands Sørgekåpe and Dunderbeist, which were welcomed by the audience, SEIGMEN entered the stage. The intro has been the same as at the concerts last year. A white curtain covered the stage and the fans were listening to ‘Monument’ while watching an animated short-film of the SEIGMEN logo conquering the world.

The ending of the film has been changed, and introduced the new SEIGMEN area. Slowly but surely the cover of ‘Enola’ appeared and stayed for a little while, before the show finally started with the new song ‘Hva vi elsker’! The curtain was still up, while there were some lights projecting the silhouettes of the band. After a while people started to wonder if the curtain was supposed to come down or not. After the song, Alex Møklebust - still hidden - welcomed the audience he couldn‘t see. That was a weird little moment for everybody.


The show had been interrupted for a few minutes and finally Lorry fixed the problem and cleared up the scenery! At the next night it worked perfectly and the curtain came down at the first chorus of ‘Hva vi elsker’, which was a really cool effect. Right from the beginning, the atmosphere in “Sentrum Scene” was astonishing - a mixture of excitement and curiosity. At this moment nearly 90% of the audience still did not know the new songs, and waited for them intently. In a terrifically well way SEIGMEN managed to mix new songs like ‘Forevig og alltid’, ‘Trøst’, ‘I mitt hus’ and ‘Tenn alle lys’ with classical songs like ‘Ohm’, ‘Colosseum’, ‘Fra X’, ‘Juvel’ and ‘Döderlein’. Especially at the second night, after they changed the set list a little bit, it worked really brilliantly. The energy on stage, and also in front of the stage, has been overwhelming and ended in an unforgettable moment while everybody was singing “Hjernen er alene” together with Alex, Kim, Noralf, Sverre and Marius.


On top of all the excellent music and performances there has been a really awesome light show. The arrangement of the colours, the type of light and their intensity perfectly matched to the power and the atmosphere of every single song! In my opinion both shows has been slightly too loud and the mix has been really bassy, but that didn’t cut down two perfect concert experiences at all.

 

SEIGMEN is definitely back!

SEIGMEN is

Kim Ljung - songwriter, bass guitar, vocals

Alex Møklebust - lead vocals

Noralf Ronthi - drums

Sverre Økshoff - guitar

Marius Roth Christensen - guitar, vocals

 


Setlist - 10th April 2015
01. Monument (Intro)
02. Hva vi elsker
03. Ohm
04. Colosseum
05. Forevig og alltid
06. Trøst
07. Nihil
08. Metropolis
09. Hvit stjerne hvit støy
10. Agnus dei
11. I mitt hus
12. Slaver av solen
13. Tenn alle lys
14. Fra X til Døden
15. Döderlein
---
16. Mesusah
17. Hjernen er alene

Setlist - 10th April 2015
01. Monument (Intro)
02. Hva vi elsker
03. Ohm
04. Colosseum
05. Forevig og alltid
06. Juvel
07. Trøst
08. Metropolis
09. Tenn alle lys
10. Agnus dei
11. I mitt hus
12. Slaver av solen
13. Fra X til Døden
14. Döderlein
---
15. Mesusah
16. Nihil
17. Hjernen er alene

Rating

Music: 10

Performance: 10

Sound: 8.5

Light: 10

Total: 9.5 / 10