The tiny Sommerfesten music festival in Ålesund holds such utopian ideals that its motto – "Peace, Love and Understanding" – is delivered completely straight-faced. Normally such wide-eyed naivety would stoke the inner cynic in me, but there's something about this place that makes me resist judgement, and I come away from the experience a little wide-eyed myself.
For a start, it's beautiful. Ålesund itself is an art-nouveau toytown built between 1904 and 1907 after a fire destroyed the settlement, and the surrounding countryside is a breathtaking, film-set-perfect jumble of mountains and fjords. Sommerfesten takes place on Giske, a miniscule island roughly 15 minutes from the town. It's been going since 2008 and has gained in popularity year by year. In 2011, 30,000 turned up and the founders restricted ticket sales to 20,000 last year, principally, it seems, to reduce the queues for the ladies' loos. "This is a non-commercial festival," insists co-founder and chief booker Ante Giskeødegård. "We've never made any money on it and we never will."
For a festival that's grown quickly and surely, it still feels small and local, and that is down to this determination to keep doing what they want to, rather than what makes the big bucks. Instead of the usual festival rota of burger vans and greasy noodles, people are encouraged bring their own food (you get a sticker for doing so).
It's not so much a giant packed lunch as a mass communal barbecue – whatever it is you decide to donate, to whatever value, is taken to a mysterious white marquee, from where it emerges as a bowl of salad, or marinaded and ready to chuck on to one of the many drums of hot coals. In addition to steak and sausages, I spotted elk, langoustines and a seemingly endless supply of local salmon sashimi, plus cinnamon buns and home-baked cakes for desert. It's hard to imagine, say, Reading and Leeds being able to pull this off, unless people were prepared to eat a communal casserole of lager, pot noodles and bacon butties.
Many attendees have been before, and it's not just the punters who love it. When I visited last year, singer-songwriter Sondre Lerche was high up the bill. He grew up in Bergen, Norway's second city, and moved to Brooklyn 10 years ago, but Sommerfesten makes him happy to be home. "It's becoming more and more of a thing," he explains just before his set, as the winds off the north Atlantic whip up a brisk breeze. "And you hear about it mainly from fellow bands. If you say you've played at Sommerfesten, everyone has a specific story, experience of here. I have high expectations."... read more
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