Arvika Festival 2002 - Arvika - Sweden

full lineup: http://www.galaxen.se/allaartister.php


it all began in the worst possible way. i went down to the train station to take the train into oslo,and then drive down to
arvika with my friends. as the train i were supposed to take were canceled, i had to wait for 30 more min, and this caused a dealy in our schedule.
as soon as we started to drive, we popped some beers in the car on the way down towards arvika, beginning the festival early on in the back of the car. some checz 12% beer was the thing. after driving for 2 hours, we arrived arvika city and headed towards the liquor store. when we were done there, it seemed like we had robbed the place. 3L with liquor and around 240 bottles of beer (5,7% - 7,3%) were now packed in the back of the car.
on the way from arvika city to the camping area, it started to rain a bit, but this didnt stop us. while waiting in the line to get in, it began to rain more and more. we put up our tents, and only minutes later, the lightnings were flashing across the sky, and the rain were falling down as 10kg rocks. the whole camp area got socking wet, and mud appeared everywhere.
some water doesnt stop vikings from norway, so we settled down and began to drink. beer time with other words. after getting mad-ass drunk (all of us), we went to bed around 05:00am on thursday. one tent got wet during the night, so one of the guys left arvika, before the festival actually had started.
but then again, we didnt let this stop us. beginning to drink again as soon as we woke up, we had a very good shape at 06:00pm, when dj bjørn svin mixed awesome electro for almost 1,5 hours. this fucking blew us away, and it were supposed to get even better. we ditched the last 15 min of bjørn svin and went across the street to watch miss kittin and the hacker (live). out of 10 peple at the festival, around 7 were total freaks looking like bootyboys or some death-metal addicts. to my biggest surprise, 80% of these invaded the miss kittin and the hacker stage. they came there to 'watch' them play..
so our experience got ruined by some stupid idiots. no matter how much we tried to make people understand that you are supposed to dance to this, they just stood there as walls. 45 min later, the liveact was over. after rocking the stage with songs as '1982', 'frank sinatra 2001', 'dj song' and more, we went back to the camp to consume even more alcohol. beer after beer went down, and around 10:00pm we went back to the festival area. back to see anthony rother's liveact. this rocked everything, and is probably the best thing i've ever heard in my entire life. song after song, pumping bass and beats. electro madness mixed with some mad-ass techno. walking out 1 hour later, i was like 'wow, wtf? this rocked hard', but i still didnt know the night were pretty young. 2 min away, on the main stage, orbital prepared for their liveact. with speakers large as houses, and about 100++ spotlights, this became the sickest liveact i have experienced. not because the music was the most amazing music ever, but because of the whole show as one performance. the climax was in their song 'satan', when a vocal said: 'it's better to regret soething you have done, than something you haven't done, and by the way, if you see your mom later today, please remember to tell her... satan!!!'
what a kick. i just stood there watching and dancing for 2 hours. as soon as orbital left the stage, time maas came on stage with his house/tech-house. as some of my friends had seen him live on the roskilde festival in denmark, we didn't give him much of a chance to convince us that spending 2 hours dancing to his beats was worth it. after some minutes we left, heading back to the camp where the after party was! once again, after partying to 10:00am we got fucked. our liquor was gone, so we went back to the liquor store in arvika city, buying 3 more bottles, and some more beer. after arriving back at the camp, the drinking began once again. drinking all day long, this became the day i got most drunk of all the days i were there.
this day became the 'drinkning day' for me. i didnt visit the festival area, so i missed some artists like the delta (psytrance from germany) and some other stuff. i got a sick hangover, and i didn't manage to party later the same day. while the others drank beer all night long,again, i had to lay in the tent, trying to overcome the hangover i had from the bottle of absolut citron i drank.
next morning, feeling the same way as i did the night before, i didnt have the willing to drink any more alcohol. i know alcohol is the only way to fix a hangover, but this time i just wanted to become sober. only sitting there for some hours, without nothing to do, made us agree on to leave the festival later the same night. we packed down our tents, and carried them back to the cars. going to the festival area after packing down our stuff was a huge relieve. infected mushroom were on the lineup for 07:00pm. as i entered the room, i could hardly breathe. some hundreds of psy-heads were dancing like maniacs in the heat. the sun was shining outside, and inside the temperature was about 60-70 degrees. i danced and danced to this amazing psytrance. hard and brutal as we like it, i danced all the time. after they were done playing live, i went out, freezing. and it was still 30 degrees outside! we went to the 'local record stand' and bought some vinyls, before we waited for luke slater to arrive. he appeared on the stage, and tested out the synths and stuff. i was really looking forward to see luke, but the thing i didn't know was that he was actually going to play live, not do a set. so at 11:30pm he aproaches the stage with his band, starting off their liveact with 'nothing at all', a track that sux pretty much and contains gay vocals. i actually heard those vocals live, as the singer was there. this became the largest dissapointment of the whole trip. sucky electropop with vocals, how much worse can it get?
anyways, we left early, as we couldn't face the facts that luke actually played that shit. compared to what he delivered at hyperstate2001 in his 3 hour set, this was totally hilarious.

In the end, this festival was amazing, and became the trip of my life. Experiencing all those liveacts my made day better.
Each and every artist i watched was amazing in his/their own way, except luke slater, who was the biggest dissapoinment.

All i can say for now is that all of you who had the opportunity to go, but didn't, missed a hell of a festival!