A long time ago - back in 2019 to be precise - I released the album 'Thaw'.
It was an album with a slightly different atmosphere than the albums that came immediately before. In turn, the album tied my first two instrumental albums together with my later song-based albums. Half a year after the release of 'Thaw', I should have played some festival concerts with this particular album as a focal point, and I produced a lot of material for the concerts. But as everyone knows, Covid19 came and made the world strange.
Covid19 put everything on hold and I stopped working on my music, which means I haven't released a new album since 'Thaw'. And when the world returned to normal, it felt strange to draw a line across what was. 'Thaw' was unfinished and I felt like I had to do the concerts that never materialized.
Some of the venues I was originally supposed to visit no longer existed and others were no longer interested. So it felt like starting all over again. When the concerts started to be booked a year ago, I revisited the material originally made for the concerts, and I decided not to have such a one-sided focus on 'Thaw', but also to include other music from my body of work.
For over a year, all my artistic activity has been about concerts. I like to adapt each individual show to the setting in which they are to be played, and this applies to all aspects such as film sequences, set lists etc. This means that all the concerts I have played have been unique. And speaking of unique, the last venue was absolutely unique.
Brønshøj Vandtårn, with its raw concrete walls, twenty meter ceiling and several raw columns, is a place I have wanted to play for many years. And on 18 May we finally succeeded in enveloping the tower in sound, light and laser.
The show was not the easiest to set up, as the column structure made it difficult to find suitable space for my videos, and the room's enormous reverberation was a challenge in itself.
Light designer Mikkel Møller Larsen, sound engineer Jens Søbæk and I visited the tower some time beforehand, where we discussed the possibilities and designed everything for the room. This meant new arrangements of the music, new videos and a new light show.
And let me add a few words about Mikkel and Jens. Concert technicians are an underrated profession that is often overlooked. But they do an essential job, and often work harder and more than the musicians! I have had Mikkel and Jens in my team since 2019, and they are absolutely fantastic to work with! Eventhough they are not on stage, they are completely indispensable, and these concerts could not be done without them!
It took over 24 hours to set up our equipment, and when the day of the concert arrived, the event was sold out. There was a long queue outside the water tower, and when the doors opened, DRONNING (who is also part of the band) was already doing a warm-up set on his modular synthesizer. Abstract sounds filled the air as the audience settled in, creating a mysterious atmosphere.
We opened the main set with a couple of instrumental tracks before the first singer was introduced. I have worked with the singer Julie Frey for about twenty years, and she appears on several of my albums, not least 'Thaw' where she is responsible for all vocals. But we have never managed to perform on stage together before. Julie's crystal clear voice filled the room before the evening's second singer, Tanja Hollerup who has sung at all my concerts, was introduced.
A third singer was also present. Anders Brandt, who I haven't worked with since the 'Tesla' album from 2015, came on stage to sing and play guitar for the track Whiteout, which he also played the studio version of back in 2012.
Photo: Dan Kornbak
As always, the band consisted of Jesper H. Petersen on bass, Emil Rønning on modular synth, hydrophone and electronic devices, and as something new we had Nicolai Olsen on Chapman Stick. Nicolai was a guest musician when we played at StoreTårn on Christiansø, and when we got a cancellation two days before the concert, he took over and learned the repertoire. Well done!
Photo: Malene Sørensen
The concert lasted an hour and a half and was a tour-de-force greater than the concerts I have previously held. What a way to round off what started as a 'Thaw' tour but was held five years late.
I don't have any more concerts booked, and although I'll probably say yes if I'm asked if I want to play another concert of this kind, I'll now finish 'Thaw' and move on.
There has been an advance review of the upcoming concert in Brønshøj Vandtårn. While you are reading it, I'll be working on the preparations.
"The well-known multimedia artist Ste van Holm will perform in Copenhagen for the first time in 11 years.
The concert takes place on Saturday 18 May at 8pm in Brønshøj Water Tower, where the audience can experience a show with sound, light, film and laser.
Although Ste van Holm rarely appears in Copenhagen, this does not mean that the man who lives on Denmark's easternmost point, Bornholm, has been on the lazy side. He has previously done multimedia shows elsewhere, including in Berlin, where he was visited on stage by NU Unruh from EInstürzende Neubauten.
The two have collaborated on several occasions, and this bodes well for the upcoming concert in Copenhagen.
There will also be exciting guest performances at the concert in Brønshøj Water Tower, but until the concert itself, you have to be patient and wait to find out who it is.
Tickets can be bought in advance or 'Pay-what-you-want' at the door."
Murphy's law states, that all that can go wrong, will go wrong. And boy did this show go wrong!
Some incidents were out of my hands, others were caused by me not being concentrated enough. Fortunately my crew is so skilled, that I think next to none ever noticed anything.
Anyway... we played this charity concert called 'A Prayer for Ukraine' in one of the oldest churches in Denmark.
I honestly thought Russia was bluffing. My imagination didn’t stretch far enough, as to believe Russia would actually attack a peaceful neighbor. Yes, there were unresolved issues with the russian minority in Donbass, but to actually wage a war…
I have been to Ukraine myself a few times, and I really enjoy Kyiv. Saturdays at the Maidan is something to experience. And I hope the day comes, when I can visit Ukraine again.
When parish priest Benedikte Gyes asked if I would like to play a charity concert in her church on the second anniversary of the Russian attack, I did not hesitate to say yes. And when everyone from my crew also said yes, the preparations began. I knew we couldn't just repeat the recent concerts, but had to include more about Ukraine. I included several heavy tracks, such as Broken Arrow from 'Thaw' which is about the careless handling of hydrogen bombs. I also cut several new film sequences, with footage from Ukraine and I made the artistic choice not to show anything from the ongoing conflict. I would rather show how beautiful a country Ukraine was before the war.
The lineup was the same as the Gongladen show back in august: Tanja on vocals, Jesper on bass, Anders on guitar, Mikkel on lights and me on electronics and a few strings. This time Jens the sound engineer also joined in, which made my job a lot easier.
Unfortunately the concert was plagued by technical issues. When you involve technology as an active player, you also expose yourself to the risk that the technology betrays you. For example, the recently purchased projector, which was supposed to give the show a visual boost, chose to break down only 40 minutes before the start of the show. This meant that the videos were both dim and tinted purple. Running out of options we decided to carry out the concert, hoping that the quality of the films would be seen as an artistic choice. I felt this was a micro version of Jean-Michel Jarre in front of the pyramids, where fog during the concert meant that none of his projections could be seen. That must have been hard to swallow. My films were watchable after all, they just weren't impressive.
What was impressive, however, was the light Mikkel had designed! Mikkel had brought twice as many lamps and spent a long time on the show, and where I have always been satisfied with his work, this was so much more.
For one of the shorter tracks, I played a balalaika. The track Tabula Tertius has only been performed once before, and that was 11 years ago. Last time it was played on a mandolin, and so was the studio version. But on a long drive home a few weeks before this concert, I had the idea to play the theme on balalaika. However, I quickly dropped the idea, as there was only a short time before the concert and where was I supposed to get a balalaika? When I reached Ystad in Sweden, I had a quarter of an hour to kill before the ferry, and I chose to look into a thrift store. To my great surprise, they had a balalaika, and I took that as a sign.
I have always found it akward to adress the audience between songs, so I was more than happy to have Benedikte doing it from the pulpit. I held a meeting with Benedikte at the beginning of January, where we went through the setlist and I explained my thoughts behind the music. Subsequently, Benedikte wrote the text to be read between the songs, and it was quite different from what I would have come up with. The fact that Benedikte is a priest and that the concert took place in a church made, for example, that God was mentioned several times.
By the way, playing in a church is quite different from playing elsewhere. There was no applause along the way, so only at the end did we know if we had done an acceptable performance.
Well... I haven't adressed all the things that went wrong... Maybe I'll just leave it there!
After our sucessful run of concerts in the fall of 2023, I'm very happy to be able to announce two concerts for 2024.
First of all there's a concert to support and express sympathy with Ukraine. The concert will be held on the second anniversary of the completely meaningless attack. Entry to the event is free, but a collection will be made and the money will then be sent to Ukraine.
Facebook page about the event: https://fb.me/e/1wqAGCzTK
The next concert is one I'm really looking forward to, as it will be played in a disused water tower. The water tower is made of concrete and the column space is twenty meters high, which gives a reverberation of 40 seconds. I'm rearranging my music so everything isn't just drowning in reverb.
Facebook page about the event: https://fb.me/e/6nQt3XaFx
Tickets: https://www.place2book.com/da/sw2/sales/s7im67g80q