Træna Festival – Summer Idyll

Day 8-10: Træna

After our late-night (or rather early-morning) arrival on Træna, I slept almost the whole afternoon. It was great to meet the three guys from the other boat – S/Y Orion – one of whom I already knew from Bergen.

The festival location was just awesome. I have seen lots of beautiful islands, but Træna is just magic. Most of the scenes were on the main island, but there was also a shuttle boat to the neighbor island, Sanna. The music was a good mixture of rock, pop, hiphop, with Manu Chao as headliner and some other well-known bands (at least well-known in Norway..).

Art on the Festival Area.

The first evening, we went to see Timbuktu, and the atmosphere was fantastic. I guess I’m the kind of person who prefers smaller festivals. In any case, Træna is an excellent location for a relaxed long weekend with the perfect mixture of nature, party, drinking, and different music styles. I met Floortje from the Netherlands, who is a video artist, and we connected so well that I spontaneously offered her to give her a ride to Bodø or further on to Lofoten. And of course I was very curious about her project at Træna – the “Tunnel of Love”…

The next morning, we slept long, but I made my way to a little chapel where Erlend Øye was to play. Given that the chapel was tiny, they only let twenty people in, but there were hundreds sitting on the hills in front of it, listening to the music coming out of a speaker. Everyone was pretty tired, but the sun was shining, and the calm guitar music seemed to be exactly what everyone needed. […I still feel a little bit ashamed every time when I see Erlend Øye. One evening, more than two years ago, I was sitting in a bar in Bergen and said to my friend: “Oh my, this guy really does have ugly glasses!” And he replied, “well, that’s Erlend Øye from Kings of Convenience”.]

The Erlend Øye Concert.

Later that day, we had a fantastic dinner (shrimps and delicious scallops, the guys had been diving the day before we left Brønnøysund), and more and more people came by to see the catamaran, including Even and his friends. If any of you ever meets Even from Oslo, try to convince him to give up his job and start a career as a musician! He’s awesome! I’ll upload a video later – it was just fascinating to listen to him making up some funny lyrics about everything around him, the boat, me filming him, everyone else. I so loved it!!

Eventually, we went to see Manu Chao on stage. I was not in the front row, but still pretty close, and so loved the music – which didn’t really surprise me since I had bought the first Manu Chao album at least ten years ago! Again, we went to bed around 5 (or 6 or 7, I don’t really know), and it was quite a challenge to get up at 10 a.m.. But I had to – the Tunnel of Love was waiting!! “700 meters of love” – Floortje’s project. Somehow I managed and caught the shuttle boat to Sanna. On the peer, local people were selling coffee and waffles, it was so cozy! And then: There we were standing, in front of a black hole (the tunnel), hundreds of people,… waiting for love.

The Tunnel of Love.

The tunnel was completely dark (it leads to a radio station on top of the mountain), they had put some few candles on the ground, but still I couldn’t see my own hand. It was scary, but very peaceful at the same time. Then, every hundred meters or so, there was a box where one could look inside while moving a torch back and forth on the top of the box and shedding light on the inside – shapes of mountains, persons, it was like being a child again and discovering what is hidden inside a kaleidoscope…

When we came out of the tunnel, a woman was sitting and playing beautiful songs on the guitar, a guy accompanying her on the drums, while others were serving strawberries and sparkling wine. 700 meters of love. Floortje was happily standing there, watching peoples’ faces when they were coming out of the dark. And the view!

What a View!

I enjoyed the view for at least an hour, taking tons of pictures and relaxing in the grass (love can be very exhausting!). Then, everyone went down the hill to see Jenny Hval (an Icelandic singer) and her band playing in a cave. The acoustic was pretty cool!

The Jenny Hval Concert.

On the boat back to the main island, I met two Germans (and lots of other interesting people). A woman was singing while standing in the boat queue, and since she had a really nice voice, someone organized her a microphone. This is Træna.

Træna, Lust for Life.

And, oh, I will come back!