Following a long stint at KPH Volume, the 2021 edition of FOEG saw the festival try out a new, shape-shifting form with different events taking place at different venues. This year, the Festival of Endless Gratitude kicked off in Brønshøj Vandtårn and continued at Cirkusbygningen in Vanløse. One could say that the festival’s exploration of new venues somewhat falls into the recent trend (or, rather, a necessity) of having shows by artists operating on the cutting edge of music take place on the edges of the city.
The water tower in Brønshøj, which has seen an increase in concert activity over the past few years, counts among the most interesting venues in Copenhagen. Due to its round shape and monumental concrete architecture, the venue comes with peculiar acoustics, and each live show there feels like a site-specific performance of sorts. The opening night of this year’s FOEG presented the audience with three different approaches to making use of Vandtårn’s unique space and acoustic properties.
The Stockholm-based British guitarist Jon Collin started his set with a focus on string instruments (including, apparently, a homemade nyckelharpa), and later switched to experimenting with a more electronic-based drone sound. The former seemed to sit much better within the water tower, the soft string sounds gently bouncing off of the hall’s massive concrete walls.
Marie Eline Hansen’s concert was even more delicate. Accompanied only by a cellist, Hansen allowed her minimalist songs to slowly permeate the Vandtårn, their candid lyrics echoing through the cold venue. With a brief but delightful set, she demonstrated that although such a brutalist space might instinctively call for an equally grand musical reaction, a sparse setup and a straightforward performance can also go a long way.
Perhaps better known for his electronic music project Buttechno than for his experimental music output, Pavel Milyakov took this opportunity to explore several different approaches to dealing with Vandtårn’s acoustics. Building his set slowly, Milyakov created a rich soundscape that invited walking around the venue, trying out different positions in the hall, and finding the spots where one could best experience the sound at certain points in the performance. Drifting from the drone and noise parts to dense ambient structures, he ended with a calming combination of a vocal track and a gentle, instrumental one that featured the loneliest, loveliest melody in the world. The cherry on top of an evening filled with interesting performances.
With names such as Félicia Atkinson and Judith Hamann taking over Vanløse’s Cirkusbygningen on the other two days of the festival, this year’s FOEG once again had plenty to offer. A festival “founded on friendships”, it sports a particular method of programming: despite the anything-goes approach when it comes to musical genres and styles, in the end, the festival always seems carefully conceived and carried out in a way that makes it feel coherent as a whole. In today’s music event landscape, it’s almost rare for a festival to work so well year after year, especially when founded on such an unusual basis. The key to FOEG’s success seems to lie in consistency – the combination of the lineup, the venues, and the schedule might not always seem obvious on paper, but once you’ve attended the festival more than one time, its elusive concept just starts to make perfect sense on an intuitive level.