Friday June 13th 2003, two of the Morningside acts, Larsen (& Furious Jane) and The Morningside were invited by nice guy and Morningside Gold Customer™ Nikolaj Rasmussen to play a gig for the students at Uldum Folk High School. Here follows a brief overview of the events.

Well, it all started out as a real cliché Friday the 13th. Minutes after Jesper Brodersen had rented the mini-van that was going to bring the eight of us from Århus to Uldum he accidently ran it into the side-view mirror of a parked car, breaking off the mirror and leaving a nasty scratch down the side of the mini-van. After a lot of cursing bonus pater Brodersen scribbled down a note to the unfortunate car owner and off we went to pick up the rest of the Morningside band (Tina, Kaspar and Mikkel), Mr. Larsen, Ronny and Strumm-Dennis. From here the trip went without further accidents even though we, as the roads keept getting smaller and smaller, began suspecting that the guys at Krak had pulled our leg.

Finally we reached the folk high school. Here we were welcomed by a group of people sitting outside having dinner while listening to euro-dance pumping out of the open door of a parked car.

Was this it?!?

Could we have gotten the name wrong or was this some kind of summer course for juvenile delinquents? Oh no, it was the right place and soon Nikolaj, who (to my great relief) looked really indie, came to our rescue.

The next couple of hours went by setting up the gear and doing soundchecks (The Morningside: approximately 2 hours, Larsen: exactly 4 minutes and 23 seconds) and as the bar opened and the room began to get crowded, Jesper, Mikkel and Kaspar decided to venture into downtown Uldum to get some pizzas. Meanwhile Dennis would do some DJ'ing.

We soon were to realize two things. A. The pizza dudes in Uldum have a very strange understanding of the term "fast food". B. The students at Uldum Folk High School really aren't that much into avant garde electronica. As time went by I started hearing people saying things like "I thought you said they were going to play good music" and more frequently "turn it down" or "when does it begin?" So while Dennis went through his CD's in search of more straight stuff, Mr. Larsen, who was to open, began to look a little pale. I couldn't say I blamed him.

Finally the guys came back and after having eaten and binged a couple of beers Larsen entered the stage fairly calm. Much to my surprise people actually kept pretty quiet during the first song and gave a good applause afterwards. When this was repeated after the second song I started to think that it wasn't such a bad audience after all, and in fact, it wasn't. They seemed to like the music, and should there have been anyone among them, besides Nikolaj, who had actually heard Larsen's debut release I Wouldn't Sit at Home and Take It, it didn't seem to bother them that Larsen played mostly new songs.

After Larsen's performance Dennis had learned his lesson and when The Morningside went on stage it was to the sound of Neil Young. Their set, consisting of both new material and songs from The Ideas We Gave Her, was recieved even better than Mr. Larsen's. As a result they ended up doing Just About Ready For Bed twice when they ran out of songs and had to fulfil the demands from the audience.

After the concert a small Morningside Records outlet was set up and while Jesper pushed CD's and kept sober for the ride home, the rest of us went into beer-mode.

Maybe that's why he later beat everyone at both ping-pong and table-soccer (including a "legendary" match between two Uldum students and the Dreamteam of Jesper and Ronny), maybe he really is a jock after all...

Well, altogether it was a pleasent evening and thanks should go to Nikolaj for making it happen. The trip home went well aside from the fact that I was so wasted Jesper had me fooled into believing the windows in my side of the van rolled up and down by themselves (doh!).

By the way, the insurance covered the damages on both the cars so don't be scared, there will be more releases out on Morningside Records soon.

Text and shitty pictures by Tore Johansen. Original text here.