Øya Festival, Oslo: the DiS preview

Deep into the bloated innards of the festival season and DiS is headed in a north easterly direction to Norway – again – this time for the arrestingly-titled Øya Festival in Oslo.

The five-day event, which is expected to draw around 60,000 revellers, takes place from August 7-12 in the grand old setting of Oslo’s Medieval Park, in a site surrounded by water with three open-air stages. Øya can also lay impressive claim to being Norway’s most environmentally sound festival, and ambiguous claim to being Scandinavia’s first to offer 100% ecological food. Whatever, we’re sure the burgers are lovely.

Among concerns about how exactly one packs a suitcase for Norway in the summer, we’re very excited about seeing a range of top-drawer acts from an impressively eclectic bill, including The Jesus & Mary Chain, Amy Winehouse, Lily Allen, Devendra Banhart, Justice, Architecture In Helsinki, Low and Primal Scream, as well as an embarrassment of Scandinavian talent we probably haven’t heard of yet but very much hope to get ourselves acquainted with.

Here, then, is random smattering of the acts that will be weaving their aural magic for grateful ear-possessing punters from Tuesday. At the time of writing there is no guarantee that Lily Allen will be guesting onstage with Tool, but we wouldn’t bet against it.

For more information, click to the Øya Festival website here and its MySpace page here

Amy Winehouse: Is she too thin? Was she pissed at Glastonbury? Is she currently living under a table in The Hawley Arms? Ms Wino will be answering none of these questions and more as she attempts to prove what all the fuss is about beyond the tabloid feeding frenzy with a hard-hitting set of potty-mouthed soul.

The Jesus & Mary Chain: Fresh from their high profile performance at Jarvis Cocker’s Meltdown and a Scarlett Johansson-assisted set at Coachella, and with a loooooong overdue album allegedly in the pipeline, the brothers Reid and co. will bring their unique brand of fuzzy logic to Norway in what should prove a shoe-in for a festival highlight. Who knows, Bobby Gillespie might even show his face.

Devendra Banhart: With rumours of a particularly fine fifth album, Smokey Rolls Down Thunder Canyon, in the offing, we’re salivating, nay Slobbering for a definitive dose of wyrd-byrdie roots-ridden majesty from Venezualan warbler Banhart to make our festy. Test Icicle bloke be warned, there’s only one Dev in the eccentric folk stakes.

Battles: Their avant-techy-glam-WTF stylings may have divided opinion somewhat among the DiS-readership massif but live is where it’s at for the New York four-piece, well allegedly it is anyway, as this sorry-ass scribe failed miserably to beat the queues at ATP to catch ‘em play. Still, won’t be making that mistake again.

The Go! Team: With a second long-playing dose of heady rock ‘n’ soul mash-ups due to drop in the very near future (now with added Chuck D!), Brighton’s most excitable should prove the prefect tonic for flagging sleep-deprived souls in need of some good old-fashioned booty-shaking action.

Get all the action from the frontline with DiS' blog this week, with a full review of this excellent festival to follow just as soon as we've recovered...