18-19 July 2025
We at Norway Rock Magazine made the pilgrimage Northward to this little oasis of music among the birch trees of the Malakoff park, under the shadow of Osberget, lit by the dazzling long day’s sun of Vestlandet. There was something for everyone on the roster, across genres, but it was a selection of the rock acts we had come to see, something the festival sees as its focus (even the food stall is called “Rockemat”). The audience were of all ages, from older dudes in AC/DC t-shirts to youngsters bouncing around in circles. Bravo og takk Malakoff!
Text: Alex Maines
Photography: Anne-Marie Forker
The Trondheim band The Impossible Green‘s blend of 70’s style blues rock and Americana (or folk if you prefer) was a perfect start to the evening shift on the Friday where you don’t necessarily want to blow the doors off. You want something that has a good swing, a warm inviting intensity. There was a good sized crowd around the smaller Amfi scene, but the sound was not small. A tight set, played with conviction, with “Never Get Off My Mind” the easy standout number. 4/6
The September When remain for Norwegians of a certain age a national treasure. Their 2008 reunion didn’t perhaps produce music that has stuck in the memory of those people in the way that their original material did, and they did not waste any time. It was a hit parade of fan favourites. The space between the trees was full from nearly the first measure of “Sometimes Serious”, the first of eight songs from 1994’s “HuggerMugger”, which they had celebrated with a dedicated tour last year. Although it is a popular album, it took a while for the crowd to get into it, despite Morten Abel strutting up and down the edge of the stage, trying to get the audience’s attention. However, he largely had to let his performance do the talking, as he had dual duties as guitarist and vocalist, even taking solo guitar parts on “Getting It” and “Leave To Wonder”. The arrangements of the eleven songs they had chosen varied enough to showcase the band’s heyday but also meant that it lacked some unity of sound. “Leave To Wonder”, which broke into a heavier sound after the first verse, was placed between the much-loved ballad “Cries Like a Baby” and the groovy, bouncy “Mama Won’t Tell You No Lie” from “Mother, I’ve Been Kissed”. There was a similar shift of colour between the edgy, ironic, Level-42 disco number “Bullet Me” and the dark, dense textured, Gary Numan-esque “True Love”. If the crowd were slow on the uptake at first, they were dancing in numbers well before half time, and by the time Abel, bass player Gulleiv Wee and (replacement) guitarist Nikolai Grasaasen took to the catwalk during “Bullet Me”, I dare say everyone wanted a longer set. It had been Abel’s show, really, especially when you add in the guitar solos. His voice has held up well, and while pieces like “Can I Trust You” didn’t stretch him much, he showed good control and tenderness on “Cries Like a Baby” and rose effortlessly into his higher registers on “Getting It”. They closed, appropriately enough, with “The Garden Party”, which was gentle, ambiguous, yearning, and, again, a somewhat different musical style to what had come before. A fan-oriented set which was well received by a welcoming and increasingly animated crowd but which could have benefitted from better musical direction. 4/6
Vocalist and guitarist Amy Love and bassist Georgia South of Nova Twins took complete the control of the intimate space under the trees around the smaller stage. It was curious to see music of such an unequivocally urban character played in a rather rural setting, but it didn’t matter. It was a performance of such force, such commitment, that it could have been done on a beach at twilight and they would have pulled it off. At eight numbers it was a comparatively short set, but it gave the duo plenty of time to showcase their unique sound, with most of the material taken from their upcoming “Parasites and Butterflies” album, due out in August. There may have been a few existing fans at the front rail, but the impression was that most of the people came to hear them for the first time. The crowd grew rapidly as South’s dense, effects-laded bass riffs spilled out of the grove into the rest of the compound. South has an amazing box of tricks at her disposal, and she carried a little more of the burden of producing the live sound just with a bass, with Love focusing on the delivery of the vocals for the greater part, adding her guitar when she wasn’t strutting up and down the catwalk like a performance poet. It was a physical performance from the first minute. Love only stood still when she needed to be at her effects board while South bounced up and down, weaved and bowed her way through the pieces. Love even dragged her mic stand hallway down the catwalk. They only stopped for a few moments between numbers to change instruments or for Love to say a few words to the crowd – “We’re in awe of your beautiful country”. Eight songs don’t give a band much time for variation or even a pause for breath so there was more in common between the numbers than changes in dynamics or style. In a set this short, this rather increased their impact. “We’re friends now, right?” asked Love and the crowd cheered their agreement. We should hope for more and longer appearances by Love and South in the coming years, after their appearance in the tent at Tons of Rock last year. 5/6
Eagles of Death Metal frontman, Jesse Hughes, took to the catwalk as the band came out to the tune of “We Are Family”. He tapped the outstretched hands from the front row and bounced up and down, waving his arms, building up the atmosphere before launching a comfortable set, interspersed with his usual repartee. He complimented the festival on its line-up “What a concentration of rock-and-roll talent we have here …” (We can’t disagree there) “… and that’s why I wrote this next song”, a refrain he would keep coming back to. That was followed by one of Hughes’s pieces from his earlier incarnation in Boots Electric, “Complexity”. Highlights were “Silverlake (K.S.O.F.M.)” where Hughes bowed to the audience, doffing one of the pink cowboy hats that were for sale in the village that he had borrowed from someone in the front row “Don’t you know who I am? Don’t you know who I am?” – pure showmanship, as expected – and the bluesier, perhaps sleezier, numbers like “I Want You So Hard (Boy’s Bad News)” and “I Love You All the Time”. The pace and delivery of the set was well measured for a warm evening full of the good humour of the festival. Not many can have peeled away by that stage, and the setting of the refreshment tables meant that even people eating – or in need of a sit down – could enjoy the show. A workmanlike set, with Vee (bass), Shiflett (guitar) and Bluestein (drums) all putting in a good shift. Nothing wrong, nothing special but certainly appreciated by the audience. 3.5/6
The trio Snayx, hailing from Brighton, took control of the smaller Amfi scene. Frontman Charlie Herridge made full use of the forestage and catwalk throughout the set, and there was to be more. They started with a bang, with “Ignorance”, which announced their half-ironic, half-earnest urban disaffected style to the growing crowd, and carried on in a similar vein with “Violence” and “Better Days”. Herridge teased the seated crowd that the sun had fallen far enough that there was shade for them to come down and fill out the space in the standing area. “Come on! The sun’s gone now!”. There was attitude there, something which fell a little flat at first, but later on the crowd warmed to Herridge’s posturing as he tried to animate the audience around the catwalk, even joining the fans in the mosh pit in a “circle of death”. They played recent material, like the edgy “Strut”. That marked a slight change of pace in the set, with Elaina Loops’s relentless drum parts more often at half measure in which was otherwise a set marked by its speed, even though the numbers weren’t short. More of the seated crowd came down after Herridge joked he would come over and find them later if they didn’t join in. Talking to and about one of the seated audience, “he’s superglued down, isn’t he” he said to bass player Ollie Horner, who had near-single-handedly provided the musical backing for the whole set. By this point, Herridge had the audience on his side and there was laughter all round. The set ramped up to its close, starting with a cover of “Breathe” which they dedicated to the late Keith Flint, and finishing with their uncompromising hit “Work”. No doubt that they had managed to capture their listeners by the end. A forceful set, delivered with a polish well hidden behind the post-punk attitude. 5/6
The Hellacopters were at Malakoff for the first time, a much anticipated arrival and a late evening set which had the crowd in the bright open space around the main stage in good time for their start. The whirring sound of helicopter blades drew people in from the food and drink stalls, and the space was nicely full by the first chorus of opening number “Token Apologies” from their January 2025 album “Overdriver”. Despite having that album fresh off the press, it was a set which spanned their output. They had come knowing that the crowd wanted to hear a good selection and with no fan favourites missing, either. Having said that, one fan favourite, guitarist Dregen, was of course still absent with an injured hand. So, Nicke Andersson took guitar solo duties alongside LG Valeta, from ’77, also filling in for Dregen. “Toys and Flavors” went down a storm. It took a few numbers before the sound was quite right, but then we could hear Anders Lindström’s swirling organ backing (accompanied by swirling hair). Other set highlights where “The Devil Stole the Beat From the Lord” from “Grande Rock” and the bitterly ironic “Everything’s on T.V.”. Robert Eriksson on drums was perfectly on the nail, giving the music the powerful backing it needed. The emphasis of the show had been, perhaps rightly, on their earlier records, though hardcore fans might have been disappointed to find no tracks from “Supershitty To The Max!” on the bill. It would be fair to say that they did “Leave Their Mark” on the Malakoff crowd. It was a breathless affair, fast, energetic, committed, and full of 1970s rock’n’roll bravado. 4.5/6
