Norwegian Wood Improves With Age

The 17th Norwegian Wood Festival was shaping up to be one of the best before the gates even opened, with three of the four days already sold out.

Live Nation chief Rune Lem’s prediction that the Friday would do 6,200 tickets proved to be remarkably accurate, and the final tally showed only 1,000 of the 32,000 tickets going unsold for the June 12-15 event.

Lem’s office books the acts and this year’s major coup was to get the spare date on Foo Fighters, which was in Scandinavia to play Finland’s Provinssirock and Sweden’s Where The Action Is, on the following two days. Lem’s Live Nation colleagues in Stockholm promote Where The Action Is.

"It was remarkable to see a band of that size playing to an 8,000 crowd that’s so close to the stage," he told Pollstar.

The steep gradient of the Oslo Frogner Park’s natural amphitheatre means that those at the back still have a close view of the stage.

The other big acts getting a close-up view of a relatively small (8,000 capacity) festival crowd included Dinosaur Jr., Queens Of The Stone Age, Madrugada, Jimmy Eat World, Billy Talent, Rufus Wainwright, Paramore and Alanis Morisette.