Terje Winther travelled all the way from Norway to England with a lot of analog gear to play a solo gig in the Awakenings concert series at Burton-on-Trent on Saturday, September 26th, 2009. This great concert was later released as "awaken in england", and the concert included the famous joystick "chair incident" captured on the recording as well as on video. But who travels for 6 days just to play a one-hour concert? Read and find out!
The Awakenings concert series is run by Jez Creek - a.k.a. Modulator_ESP, and during 2009 the venue was the Paget High School auditorium in Burton-on-Trent in the middle of England. Most of the major electronic acts in England performs in this concert series. Poster for 2009:
This concert was a shared bill between Edge Effect, Terje Winther, and Brendan Pollard, Mick Daniel and Phil Booth aka Pollard/Daniel/Booth:
Terje Winther performed for one hour, including the song "where the water leaves the road" from his CD "electronic regions", that finally got it´s proper release 5 days prior to this concert, making this the official release concert. Bård Eirik Winther had made a DVD backdrop of images particulary for this concert, with a mixture of nature footage, closeup of electronic parts and components, as well as special effects and photos. The concert was recorded and is available from MusicZeit as "awaken in england". Phil Booth captured the concert on video, and here are two YouTube videos:
This second video include the famous "chair incident" at the end:
A lot of nice photos was taken during the concert, and some can be found here with kind permission from the photographers Xan Alexander and Phil Booth:
It was a good concert, but getting there and back was a challenge of it´s own. Terje Winther recollects:
"I had wanted to play at Awakenings for a while, and a dialogue with Jez Creek for almost a year in advance started the planning of this event. The greatest challenge was getting all the heavy analog synthesizers and gear from my studio in Norway to the concert in England and back. Air transport was out of the question, so the only useable solution was to drive myself in a large van. But it is a long way to drive from Norway to England, so I investigated alternatives. There used to be several ferries directly from various major cities in Norway, like Kristiansand, Stavanger and Bergen directly to Newcastle in England. However, none of these ferry lines were run anymore, so there were no ferries between Norway and England at all. I considered driving all the way through Denmark, Germany and Holland to England, but that drive would have taken so many hours and days that I feard I would be exhausted when I reached the concert venue. Thinking back, I would probably have been better off doing that. In the end I found a cargo company that had a ferry line between a minor place called Brevik in Norway to Immingham in England (a place no-one had heard about!) that also accepted persons on the ferry. It was a bit expensive, but in the end I ordered the ferry and started to prepare for the trip and concert.
Since Norway is outside the EU, and England is on the inside, there was a lot of paperwork to prepare for this kind of trip. You don´t bring a truckload of expensive gear in and out easily. Fortunately I am a musician´s union member so they provided the security for my Ata Carnet - the customs clearance papers. I had double- and triple-checked all papers and contacts in advance, even spoken to customs on both sides to prepare, made all the bookings, prepared the music, the DVD-backdrop, and had everything solved regarding Jez and the concert. During the planning various alternatives regarding coming and going to the concert, including early arrival at 4 in the morning at Jez´s were possible alternatives. At last I was ready, eager and a bit nervous to get going.
On Thursday September 24th 2009 I picked up the large rented van, drove to my studio and loaded all the gear into the van. For some reason there was no customs officers present at Brevik that night, so I had to drive through Oslo and have the customs there stamp my papers, which was a bit odd, because Brevik is a 2,5 hours drive away, but this was how the customs wanted it, so I obliged. However, when I got to the customs office in Oslo, late at night, they were a bit reluctant to stamp my papers, but after a bit of persuation and explanation, they did so. I then drive down to Brevik, where the ferry was scheduled to leave at 2 a.m. on Friday morning/night. Coming to Brevik I was a bit taken back by how things were done. Things were slow, the info was scarce, but in the end both the van and I was on board the ferry. It turned out to be exactly 5 passengers including me. We were shuffled up to 5th floor in a narrow corridor and small rooms, and told to stay in our rooms. The ferry was gigantic and very long, with 4 km of cargo lines on board. So far, so good. I went to sleep, because the ferry would use no less then 26 hours to reach Immingham in England.
Friday was a long day at sea. The weather was ok, so it was an easy ride, but extremely boring. I read a book about Mellotrons, and watched DVDs with my fellow passengers. There was a small cantina where we got our food, and a tiny lounge with a small TV and DVD-player, so somehow the waves rolled by.
On Saturday September 26th 2009 the ferry reached Immingham at 4 a. m. in the morning. I was to play the concert 16 hours later - plenty of time since it was only a two-hour drive away. The plan was to drive to Jez´s house, grab some sleep, a breakfast and then go early to the venue and set up gear. None of that happened. As soon as I was out of the ferry, I asked about the customs office. "Sorry, mate, they are not here". All right, I had special ordered customs, and they had confirmed that it was all good. They should arrive as soon as the office open at 7 a.m. That was a 3-hour wait. Sure - I could wait, so I parked the van on the side where someone told me to wait. Having just parked a guard pulled up to me demaning to know what I was doing. I told him I waited for customs, on which he demanded that I got into his car with my papers, because he would take me to customs. Sure - great! He drove me out of the docks to some customs office that stamped my papers, took me back to my van and told me to drive off. But that all sounded too easy, right? It was. The guard at the gate would not let me out because his system did not have a clearance for me to leave. "But look, here are my stamped papers", I told him, waving my papers. No luck! To make a long - a VERY long story short: I had to stay on the docks for 9,5 hours. In the end a proper customs officer came and started to do whatever needed to be done. The problem was that the customs office was one hour´s drive away, and if something went wrong - and it did, twice! - that woman had to drive for two hours to fix it. All the time I was sitting in my van on the docks for all these hours, unable to move about because there was cargo carriers all around me, with no food, no water, no shelter, no nothing. Just sitting in the van for 9,5 hours, while Jez and the venue was only 2 hours away. It was extremely frustrating. I phoned Jez and updated him on the progress, of course.
Finally I was able to leave the docks. It was a sunny day, slightly overcast, perfect driving conditions, and my spirits was once again uplifted. Driving on the left side of the road takes a bit of concentration, especially at roundabouts, but driving on the highway is fairly easy as you can just follow your lane. Only one wrong turn inside Burton, othervice I got all the turns right, as I had prepared with maps of all sorts before leaving home, and I had a lot of time to study them while waiting at the docks...
Reaching Burton-on-Trent and meeting Jez and everyone was delightful. The auditorium was a great venue, with lots of floor space, great feeling of space overhead, a large canvas for the backdrop, and liquid lightning. There was a lot of help getting the gear in, and even though I was much delayed we still had time to do a proper sound check, blow a fuse, get some fish & chips, and be ready for the concert. I was anxious to get started, so I quickly set up and started patching all the modulars, because I know that it takes time, and it is very easy to forget something or do an error in the patching. I had really prepared and rehearsed for this concert, because for me this was an important concert, so I was looking forward to perform.
The concert started with Edge Effect, which did a 45 minute ambient set with nice sounds and good video backdrop. During the break there was CD sales, which John Sherwood handles perfectly. Since this was release for my new CD, I made a "special deal", and lots of people bought CDs from me.
Then I was on. First up was "Where the water leaves the road" from the "electronic regions" CD, a song I know well. Some very minor errors, but generally that song really went well. I could really get the groove and sounds going, so I was enjoying myself. Next was a moodier piece called "Be not afeard of the Stones", where I wanted to do something much spacier than I usually do, to contrast the other songs. The name of the song has s double meaning, and towards the end I used the newly serviced Roland vocoder to good effect. I was also very pleased with the sounds I created on the fly from the Yamaha SK-20 symphonic ensemble. I really like not having presets and just finding new sounds live. Then I started the last song, dedicated to the concert series, called "Awaken". I was afraid of loosing the momentum of the performance, so I started the sequencers long before everything was ready. This meant that the audience got to hear me repatch and set up the analog step sequencers as I got along. I just did this so that the audience wouldn´t have to just sit there and wait - and it was the first time I did this "open microphone sequencer set-up" - but somehow everyone really enjoyed this, and it even made it to the YouTube video. Amazing, but it only shows that live music can be greater and beyond whatever you plan. Towards the end of "Awaken" I grabbed my modified joystick that had been sitting idle on top of the analog modular, walked in front of the audience and started playing. I got a little moved by everything, so I started to "show off" a little, as I like a live concert to be spontanious, and in electronic music it is all too easy to just sit behind the gear and not do anything. So I ended up in front of the audience, between them, on the chairs, and even under a chair, which amused the audience so much that it became known as "the chair incidence". Both the sound and the control of the joystick was as I wanted it, but so it should, because I have custombuild the control module myself. I ended the concert with the sequencers turned off, and just the joystick solo. Great applause, and great reception from a heartwarming audience!
Next up was Brendan, Mick and Phil that did a wonderful Berlin school set with real Mellotrons, strings machines, guitar, huge modulars and what-nots. Great music!
Afterwards I was in a hurry, because the return ferry left the same night. If I missed that ferry the next ferry was 3 days away, so I better fetch it that night. I had been allowed to enter the docks slightly after "closing time" by the cargo company, but with the experience of the same morning fresh in memory I was a bit concerned. With a lot of help I rushed the gear into the van and speeded on to the highway. It was more or less no traffic and pitch black dark, and me driving like mad down the English highway with my heart beating, both from the limited time window to reach the ferry, and the adrenaline kick from the concert. I reached the ferry in time, and once again was escorted to the closed confinement of my quarters together with 6 passengers (after a long time waiting on the docks that I knew just too well), and dived into bed at 3 a.m. in the morning.
We spent the whole of Sunday at sea, once again reading the Mellotron book and watching DVDs, chatting (one of the British guys even bought a CD), sticking my head out the window to get some air, and interrupted by the occational meal.
Monday morning, September 28th. We arrived at Brevik at 5 a.m. in the morning. I was so ready to drive the 3 hours home, but no - that would have been too easy, right? Believe it or not, but there was no EU-capable customs officers in Brevik. So we were not alloved to get ashore. We tried to argue, but no luck on our parts. This meant that both me and all the English guys had to sit on the ferry the whole day, while cargo went out and in, not being able to leave the ferry. Late at night, more than 12 hours later we sailed off from Brevik again...
On the morning of Tuesday September 29th we arrived in Götenburg, Sweden. I was finally able to drive my van off the ferry again, and head up towards Oslo and Norway. After 2 hours drive I came to the border, where a customs officer used minimal amount of time to stamp my customs papers, and I could at last drive home, unload the gear in my studio, return the rented van, and hit the bed - happy and releaved, but very tired.
A small comment: of all the trouble I had with the ferry company and especially the customs during this travel, no-one even once as much as cast a passing glimpse on my gear. There were windows in the van, so anyone could easily have peeked in, but none ever did. So why all this trouble and painstakingly security when no-one gives a shit about what I actually have in my van? Oh, well.
I must say that the whole experience was something that will linger with me for a long time. If I was to do it again I would have done it slightly differently, but I would never have been without this experience, because I really cherish what I was able to experience.
Thanks to Jez Creek and all at Awakenings I was allowed to perform a solo gig in England. It was a major achievement for me, speaking both from the logistic and finacial side, but specifically from the musical side. This marked the pivot of what I have been doing for the last five years, and since the last year prior to this event had been unusually frustrating for me, coming to England and playing there meant so much to me. It was like a dream fullfilling.
A lot of thanks to all who help me realizing this concert: TONO in Norway who supported me financially with the travel costs; GramArt and AVIS for the van; Brendan Pollard for the gear help, to all at the Modulator_ESP electronic music forum for your kind feedback; to all at Awakenings, and a special thank you to Jez Creek for making all this happen.
Of all my heart I reach out and thank all who attended the concert and made this event so special to me."
The music from this concert is available from MusicZeit as "awaken in england".
