Been in Sweden for a few weeks, mainly to visit relatives and partly to attend a festival there known as 'Peace and Love' in Borlange, started up 10 years ago to bring something positive to a town that had previously sufferred a bit of a crime problem, with a few shootings, hence the name.

Having listened to the last podcast (just a few weeks off and so much to catch up on Word-wise, when will I find time?) talking of festival rules for performers to promote entertainment for the neutral festival-goers when watching a band who they are not fans of especially, and thought I'd share my experiences.

This was a festival in a large (by Swedish standards) town centre, so thankfully no risk of mud. We had good weather anyway. A diverse line-up from scandinavian metal to swedish pop to long establised UK and US acts like Suzanne Vega and Waterboys. Oh, and The Sex Pistols, who gave a pretty good performance, mainly thanks to John Lydon's force of personality and amusingly, cantankerous comments, although I would say those old songs no longer have the power and impact they once had, it's all a bit of a pantomime, and has become quite mild really.

What was really good that we saw? Well, there was Rocky Erickson formerly of Thirteenth Floor Elevators fame performing with The Nomads, who stepped in late on after The Cult dropped out - quite glad about that. Manu Chao who really knows how to work a crowd, mostly of swedish teenagers (who wore big plastic glasses with no lenses and had black or blonde, floppy hair and wore tight black skinny jeans slipping down their bums, and who liked to run in and out of the crowd very fast while holding hands with their friends, forming chains - quite a hazard) who probably didn't know his music very well, as I didn't, but were won over, as I was, by a fantastically, energetic performance with Bob Marley-like 'yo yo' chants and lots of jumping up and down. A highlight. We also saw The Waterboys who rocked out seriously on The Pan Within - a series of great solos jazz style, i.e. one musician at a time - Mike Scott was, well, on fire really, I have to say (not literally I should add).

Then there was Martha Wainwright who impressed, and on a smaller stage teriffic shows by Jim White, Devotchka and a band I'd not heard of called Marah from US who were a bit Springsteen-like in a way and really threw themselves into it. Jim White - very droll comments between songs. One song was called 'Turquoise House' prefaced by reference to all the red houses in Sweden that are painted the same, and Jim put forward the highly provactive, outrageous suggestion of trying another colour, maybe turquoise. His appeal has a lot to do with his delivery. He also offerred to chat with the audience at the end and handed out t-shirts and hats, not with his name on or anything - just a variety of random items of clothing he had in a box. We had a few words with him, what a nice guy. Devotchka from the US also - excellent. Frenzied East European gipsy folk that got everyone dancing and kept changing pace teasingly, and an impressive female sousaphone player whose sousaphone lit up with a picture of a black cat on it. Plus they did a cover of Venus In Furs.

So the conclusion is - give it everything, make them dance, make them laugh, put lights on your instruments, and it doesn't hurt to have some gifts for the audience, then you can't fail to entertain and make an impression.