PETER&PAAL, Sting JazzKlubb, MaiJazz festival, 10th May

Peter Brötzmann: alto/tenor saxophone, clarinets
Paal Nilssen-Love: drums and percussion

This week we had gigs at Sting JazzKlubb for the MaiJazz festival. We fixed the programme, and the festival sponsored us, so that was very nice. We had a fairly reasonable amount of people showing up each evening (our concerts were of course overlapping with others from the festival), so we end up this week really satisfied.
The detailed programme can be found on: Sting JazzKlubb.

Sting JazzKlubb have gigs at Sting Café in Stavanger, there is a club downstairs with a little stage. Very decent acoustics, and a capacity of 70 people (but for the festival we were allowed to sell up to 120 tickets, but luckily that didn’t happen!).

Wednesday evening, we had the honour to welcome Peter Brötzmann and Paal Nilssen-Love. It was for me like a dream coming true: having Brötzmann playing in "my" club (we’ve had of course Paal a lot of times before).

So when i arrived Paal and Brötz were sound checking (but of course they played completely acoustic), so i was really happy that i arrived at that time and it took one minute to reboot my head from my useless day at work.

After the sound checks, we went eating in the café upstairs. So i had my share of little stories :-)
Brötz said that in the late 60s when they were starting their free jazz music in Germany, the left-wing extremists thought that their music was "elitist", so they were throwing tomatoes (and other stuff) at them during the gigs!! So of course i had to giggle, and i said: "yeah i can imagine that people were on purpose letting their tomatoes rot to use them at your gigs"... Brötz is really a nice cool guy and he has this little spark in his eyes, like meaning: "anytime i can kick your ass!". U bet!

It was really easy going with them, so after we ate, Peter went back to the hotel and Paal walked with him. So i had not much to do until door opening, 8pm.

8pm, back to Sting: it was a bit of running around: Frode came with his full mike/computer equipment to tape the gig proper, with idea to tape for a cd release... i had to help the cash women, because they were newbies (with a woman that didn’t speak Norwegian, but only some kind of east Europe bad English, super). And this little guy from Iran, hihi, i had to laugh, because that's the kind of guy you tell him to do something and he does it down to the letter. So he was pushing (really) the people through so that they don’t clog the entrance, that was fun to watch, huhu.

A lot of people showed up, many of the MaiJazz volunteers that were curious, plus the more or less usual suspects, so that was quite packed (60+ people i guess)

The "celebrity" chapter: Per Zanussi was here for the whole gig, and at the end, the whole EST band showed up, and Esbjörn was quite sad that they didn’t get more of it.

The guys played two sets, one of 50 min and the second one of about 45 min.

Man that was EXTREMELY intense, the WHOLE fucking gig!!

I just don’t understand how Brötzmann can be so powerful, it's amazing!

He used alto/tenor sax, and his clarinets. As soon as he starts playing, his sound is storming in every corner of the room. With Paal, it's a real perfect match, several times i just could not believe what i was hearing: they were completely playing together, interacting all the time, i could hear melodies of Brötz picked up by Paal and meshed up into rhythms, and many times they were attacking at the exact same time, without even looking at each other. Brötz never stops playing full blast, you think "he has to have a little break now, because _i_ need one!" forget about it! He just goes on and on until your brain is melting. Sometimes they spontaneously let the other play alone, so we had a real full overview over these two great musicians.

Some mainstream heads left after 10 minutes, hehe ;-)
Some people were screaming, but i think too that a lot went kind of petrified, they just could not believe their ears.

They started in the first set with a 35 min long piece. I had to figure out what that made me think about. Actually like when there is this nice new snow (and the machines have been smoothing it) and i am for the first time of the year wearing my skis. For the next 2 hours, i just want to go down as fast as possible and ski my head off, not caring much about the style… Only after that (and a little chocolate break), i can start thinking proper again, hehe ;-)

I had the feeling that the second set was more "structured" in a way (of course they played without notes), and less this "downhill full speed" mood. This mix of energy building sequences, and also more "meditative" parts especially at the end of the pieces they played. This set was amazingly beautiful and flawless.

At the end of the gig, Brötzmann handed me a cd that he had just given me _before_ the gig. So impertinently i said: "oh, but you already gave me this one". So he handed me another one and me: "hey, i haffe this one too, i _bought_ it!", and the others i had too, so i said: "but you can giffe me something else _next_ week... like some _unreleased_ tape??" there Paal he started laughing. So Brötz answered finally with his little sneaky smile: "Aaaahh, but ZIS will cost you a lot!".

Then i gave a big hug to Brötz, so cool that i could tell him "see you next week in Hasselt!". But i didn’t give a hug to the sweat soaked Paal, ihhhh.