
Drömfesten 2019 is this week in Sandviken and on Friday 23 August, at 6.30 pm, the first band on stage is A Padded Room. This is very special for us as it’s the first time ever we’ll be playing live under that name, despite having made four albums since 1993. A Padded Room has always been a studio project, but when Drömfesten general Per Almén asked if we were interested in playing live, the answer was “absolutely yes!” All we needed was for someone to ask.
We’ll be playing the whole album which we released almost exactly a year ago and this will be the first time that any of these songs are played live on stage. Herbie, Björn and I will also have support onstage from Bertil Fält on piano/organ and Niclas Carron on guitar.
This year’s Drömfesten looks like being a lot of fun and apparently ticket sales are going well. Friday evening starts with A Padded Room and continues with good-guy Chris Kläfford, Among Lynx and Louisiana Avenue. Saturday includes Kingsgarden, Anton Swedlunds Indianer, Lasse Lindbom and also Thomas Di Leva and I’ll definitely be there for that. No doubt it’ll be packed both evenings.

Friday on my mind is a song by Australian band the Easybeats, led by producers/songwriters Harry Vanda and George Young. When the Easybeats finally gave up, Vanda and Young started Flash and the Pan, and they had a lot of success with that, at least in Sweden. George Young’s brothers, Angus and Malcolm, had started another band a few years earlier: AC/DC, which was also… quite successful. Friday on my mind was one of a few singles I bought in late 1966. The others were the Beatles’ Penny Lane/Strawberry Fields Forever and the Beach Boys Good Vibrations. The two best singles ever? Well, I think so anyway.