Many of our readers reside in United Kingdom…. and many of them know that the ONLY festival show for Mew in England this summer is the small (independent) Truck Festival in Steventon, Oxfordshire. The 13th year marks the festival’s first event in its teens, so it’s very fitting that one of the main acts is called Teenage Fanclub. The festival organisers – known as Truckers – are very excited to have Mew as their headliner for Saturday, July 24th. Booker Drew Brammer gave us a special link where you may buy a one-day festival ticket before anyone else. He also adds:

“A couple of years back we were lucky enough to have Mew play Oxford, and it was one of the best live shows we’d ever seen, so we knew then that we had to have them play Truck Festival. We’re really excited about exposing them to the Truckers and seeing them in the open air.”

Tickets have sold very well this year, so if you wish to see Mew in England this summer, do not hesitate for too long. Naturally, MewX.info will be reporting the festival.

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In other news: today is 15/6, that’s how June 15th is usually presented in Europe. This website opened exactly four years ago (as MewX.org) and the date was not a coincidence back then. The site was originally in Finnish language only (for the first year or so), then there was a gap until we restarted with English, Danish and Finnish. We posted all the news in three languages for a year and a half until we decided to go English only. A decision we have not regretted. We thank all the readers here… the global traffic has been pretty good for a fansite.

Siesta Festival – Hässleholm, Sweden (May 29th, 2010)
Skive Festival – Skive, Denmark (June 2nd, 2010)

Mew kicked off their summer festival tour from the town of Jelling (Denmark) on May 28th and the following day they were already performing in Southern Sweden. Hässleholm is a nice little town only an hour’s drive from Malmö, one of Sweden’s largest cities. Siesta Festival is less than ten years old, but Mew have already played there twice. Reasonably priced tickets attract a lot of young people – in fact, the average age of an attendee is probably no more than 20. Out of the few foreign acts, Mew were one of the most anticipated. One of the reasons may be the fact that they have not played in Sweden since their solo show in Stockholm last November. The capital doesn’t lie the South, at any rate.

Mew jumped on stage at 9:30 pm. After a few tracks it could’ve been dark enough to use the visuals, but they decided not to show them to the Swedes this time around. It was not a particularly large audience, maybe just 3000, though the camping area may account for this. It was located quite far from the actual festival area, and by the third day many must have had blisters on their feet and opted to keep the walking to a minimum.

Once again, they opened with the Scandinavian favourite Snow Brigade, and personally I would have hoped for something else had I known that the show was going to last only for an hour. I have a feeling that Mew wanted to play Comforting Sounds as well, but the drunken Swedish (teen) audience started to walk off after 156, prompting the band to leave it at that. When has that happened before? Interesting choice as the final song, but it certainly kept you craving for more. Swirlies frontman Damon Tutunjian helped the band on bass during Introducing Palace Players, but that was a very brief moment (in Norway’s Quart Festival he did more just about three years ago). Overall, this show was one of the most passionless shows I’ve seen by Mew, an exact opposite of what would be waiting for us in Denmark a few days later.

Siesta Festival setlist:

Snow Brigade / Circuitry of the Wolf / Chinaberry Tree / Hawaii / Beach / White Lips Kissed / Tricks of the Trade / Apocalypso / Saviours of Jazz Ballet / Silas the Magic Car / Special / The Zookeeper’s Boy —– Introducing Palace Players / Am I Wry? No / 156

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Mew were charging batteries for three days and that resulted in one of the best shows I’ve seen by them, at least what it comes to outdoor gigs. Skive is a small (and slightly scary) town in Jutland, the mainland of Denmark, some five hour drive away from Copenhagen. As the Danish capital city is located on an island, you need to take a ferry at some point. Previously known as Skive Beach Party, Skive Festival is Denmark’s third largest summer festival and it was wonderfully organised. No question about that. The camping area is just a 10-minute walk away from the main stages and Mew played on the second largest one on opening day. I say day, cause they started at 8:15 pm and it was way too early and sunny to even consider the visual backdrops. So, once again, they didn’t use any. Are they deliberately telling us that they don’t need the animations to put on a good show? If so, they sure are right. Even without them, this was a wonderful show. It was all about the performance.

The sound was particularly good for an outdoor event and the band seemed happy and energetic on stage. As the stage was located next to a beach, Bo Madsen made sure that the audience danced to Beach. Nick Watts was constantly getting people excited, he sure can play the keyboard and jump at the same time. Danish people, in general, take a lot of pride for Mew and I don’t blame them. Any country would. The crowd was really into it during the whole 77-minute show that opened with Introducing Palace Players and ended with Comforting Sounds. They probably could have played an even longer set (with Tricks of the Trade maybe?), but they started almost ten minutes late (a rarity in their world) and Green Day was about to get ready on the main stage.

The title should give it away already, but Hawaii works beautifully in sunlight. Not sure about Cartoons and Macramé Wounds, though. That seems to demand a darker atmosphere despite its lyrics. Due to aforementioned track, they were able to extend the show to a reasonable length. Almost eighty minutes with fifteen tracks is quite an achievement when some songs are so short to begin with, and Sometimes Life Isn’t Easy is just played shorter. When Mari Helgerlikova cannot be seen on visuals, they cut the finale of that song.

Skive Festival setlist:

Introducing Palace Players / Snow Brigade / Am I Wry? No / 156 / White Lips Kissed / Hawaii / Beach / Repeaterbeater / Sometimes Life Isn’t Easy / Cartoons and Macramé Wounds / Apocalypso / Saviours of Jazz Ballet —– Special / The Zookeeper’s Boy / Comforting Sounds

NEXT UP: Finland’s Provinssirock (on June 18th). The time slot is set as early as 7:45 pm… so, this would be the first Finnish show without visuals in use since Ruisrock 2003.

Text and photos by Tero Heikkinen

Once again, we asked Jonas Bjerre some questions that fans might be interested in. If you want to read the beginning of this interview (merely about festivals), click here.

How many albums, approximately,  have you sold total (worldwide)?

What do you sing in the beginning of Introducing Palace Players (the very first sentence that is written on the album booklet as ”In which we make sure no-one got hurt”)?

Will you ever release the early backdrops of Hawaii on YouTube or something (only Americans have seen these live)?

Are there any b-sides left from No More Stories -era, or are Owl, Start and Swimmer’s Chant the only ones? Is there also any particular reason why no singles (save for the EP) were released physically?

- There are lots of recordings, but nothing finished or mixed (as far as I can remember). We may go back and work on that, we’ll see. In the US the physical single format is much less important than in the UK where reaching the single top 20 (or maybe it’s 40) is crucial to “make it”. I don’t really like that chart system because bands are more or less forced into schemes of releasing 6 or 7 versions of each single to boost sales and make the coveted chart. But I do like the single format, especially 7″, if there’s quality stuff on the b-sides.

Sometimes Life Isn’t Easy has been in heavy rotation on Danish radio and now Norway, too (even radio edit). Do you consider this as the fourth single and will there be a proper release (thinking about the wonderful version we heard on the most recent video diary)?

Also… about Sometimes Life Isn’t Easy, the kids and the location are the same in the backdrop as in the Beach -video, is there a connection?

- That is certainly up for interpretation. I would say yes.

When do you plan on starting to write new music? Will there be a US tour after the scheduled summer festivals? Have you already written something that is on early stages?

How about releasing a new live-DVD (and/or blu-ray)?

… the summer festival season, that is… Tonight Mew will play their first show in over three months. Within a week, they will play three shows: the Danish Jelling Festival is up next (May 28th) and then Siesta Festival in Sweden (May 29th) and Skive Festival in Denmark (June 2nd). We will return with live show reviews!!!

Have you noticed that Mew released Sometimes Life Isn’t Easy as a digital single? The ‘radio edit’ of the song runs only 2 minutes and 40 seconds, so it has been shortened by almost half of its original length. Unfortunately, the single is available in Norway only, and if that is where you reside, click on this Spotify-link to listen to it. The track has also been in heavy radio play in Norway and in Denmark, so we’ll see what happens here eventually, but – as of now – there are no plans on releasing the single in physical format.

Well, it’s been quiet in the Mew world. But hey, they continue touring next week and we will review many of the shows (which should be fun)… Apparatjik – on the other hand – have done some interesting stuff recently. First of all, they have released a single that you may download for free. You need to give some contact information here first. The single contains the following tracks:

01. Antlers
02. Look Kids (Premix AA) Diskjokke A
03. 4 Can Keep a Secret If 3 of Them Are Dead

In between Mew shows, Jonas Bjerre does another Apparatjik live show as well. The second ever show for them takes place in a small town called Flø (Go with the Flø -festival) in Norway (on June 5th) where the mysterious cube will be presented once again. Here’s a video clip from the first show in Berlin. This should be part of the upcoming DVD that will be released alongside the physical format of the debut album We Are Here, finally shipping on June 7th. Apparatjik are also releasing a series of Q&A -podcasts, the first episode has Jonas in a very otherworldly form. These guys are obviously having fun with this project…

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Maybe you are interested in checking out Jonas’ official website. It has a new design and some new features as well.

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Are you following us on Twitter yet? YOU SHOULD!

Have you noticed that Vibrashop has some new merchandise for sale?

Apart from the snowglobe (or “waterball” if you will), the theme of the new stuff comes from the song Bamse. The bags come in many different colours and the t-shirts look pretty nice. All these should be available at summer festivals as well. The bags (and the snowglobe) are approximately 10€ each and the shirts are priced a little under 30€.

Want to see Mew and many other great bands FOR FREE at this year’s Skive Festival in Denmark? Then copypaste the following text and post the tweet on your Twitter -status:

I want to see @mewwire and ??? at this year’s @SkiveFestival – check @mewxinfo -fansite for contest details!

Replace the ‘???’ -part with the band you are hoping to see (use the artist’ official Twitter -username if possible). Skive Festival’s (June 2nd – June 5th) full lineup on the official poster (below). The biggest international acts include Rammstein, Green Day, White Lies, Mika, Joan Jett & The Blackhearts, Gossip, Rise Against and many big names from Denmark.

We are giving away two tickets for two lucky winners (that’s four tickets altogether) randomly selected from the Twitter -entries. The tickets are valid for full four days with camping. One ticket alone is worth 1645 DKK (approximately 230€), so you should definitely act now. You have until May 17th and the winners will be notified immediately after that.

PS: If you don’t have a Twitter -account, you may also email the text to admin (at) mewx.info – title the email with the heading ‘Skive Festival Contest’. These are as valid entries as the tweets.

GOOD LUCK!!!

You may catch both Mew and Kashmir in Odense (Denmark) right after the summer festival season. The double concert will be held at Albani Bryggeriet on September 4th and reasonably priced (295 DKK) tickets can be bought here.

The 1977 science fiction masterpiece Close Encounters of the Third Kind has quite obviously inspired the new music videos, at least partially, no-one can deny that. Written and directed by Steven Spielberg, the classic film tells a story of a cable guy (Richard Dreyfuss) who is one of several people experiencing a close encounter. Soon he is haunted by a mountain-like image in his head and becomes obsessed with discovering what it represents.

The terminology (system classification) behind the three kinds of encounters was started by astronomer and UFO researcher J. Allen Hynek in 1972. More sub-types of close encounters were later added by others, but they are not universally accepted by ufologists. The following is just a theory of what could take place behind the most recent music videos of Mew. Feel free to comment your own views.

Introducing Palace Players

First encounter is a sighting of one or more unidentified flying objects and/or odd lights. These are aerial objects that are not known to human technology. This is when the visitors are merely collecting information from Earth. In the video we see these cubic objects recording nature in a world where human beings have very suddenly (and recently) disappeared… or have been abducted even. This video starts with a sound of wind – in fact, all three videos start like that. Sometimes it’s just a light calm breeze, sometimes a threatening heavy wind (especially in the end of Beach).

Repeaterbeater

Second encounter is when we experience physical effects from the UFO. It can be radiation, crop circles, frightened animals or interference with our television/radio reception. It may also refer to one’s memory gap associated with a UFO encounter. What if Repeaterbeater is not really about hypnosis at all, but if Jonas, Bo and Silas are given certain frightening images to see? Just like Dreyfuss’s character suddenly becomes obsessed with imagery he can not quite comprehend. We later see animated versions of these three people. Maybe they are just how aliens see our species. Also, in this video we are to see how Mew would react to their own music during an unconscious state. In Close Encounters of the Third Kind music is the universal language. For us and for the visitors.

Beach

In the third encounter we make contact. There seems to be some sort of environmental message in these videos and while human-induced Global Warming is an imminent threat, the children are our future. Are these “militant” kids (recruited or carefully chosen by aliens) supposed to change things? Are they the last people on Earth even? At least we see equal amount of both sexes for reproduction. They have been taken to a shed, but we know something bright and scary is moving and roaring (humanoids in windy form?) outside. The aliens may have given them this device with what they can see the other planet (merely a copy of ours, so that the kids would relate to it better). Mother Nature crying seems to be just symbolic for the kids to see. The video seems to play with all four elements as well (earth, air, fire and water). Eye on the volcano… Illuminati (New World Order) perhaps? After the kids saw the images, they copied the volcano in this shed. We saw that in the beginning they were clean and all dirty in the end, but I don’t think it represents purity and innocence lost. I also don’t think that they kill themselves in the end, I don’t see the cult in this one. Maybe they just drug themselves as the aliens requested (there’s no reason to believe that beings from another world would be hostile). In the alternate version of the video, they cut out the scene where the kids are drinking the “beverage” and we see Jonas singing instead of the “all-seeing-eye”. The sound effects are more powerful, too. The video fits perfectly with the song, because Beach is a happy one with dark lyrics.

As we know, the kids and the location are the same as can be seen in the backdrop of Sometimes Life Isn’t Easy. Where does this lead to? Maybe nowhere…

Raises more questions than answers and it’s hard to really know what’s going on in these videos, but they are linked to each other somehow. Until the directors or Mew tell you the facts, it will just be speculation. It’s more than likely that they never start explaining the videos, though. They are supposed to be as cryptic as Mew’s music has always been. You decide.

Tero Heikkinen

The wait is finally over. The music video for Beach has premiered and you may watch it from this link.

It took a while, but some may remember that The Zookeeper’s Boy was also a rather late release (some six months after the album And the Glass Handed Kites was out) whereas music videos for Special and Why Are You Looking Grave were both released quite fast. Then again, all these came with a bunch of singles in both vinyl and CD format. No More Stories only produced the Extended Play… and many collectors have not been too happy about this. What makes Beach different still, is the fact that it was shot pretty much simultaneously with Introducing Palace Players and Repeaterbeater. The aforementioned And the Glass Handed Kites -videos were shot just a week or two before shown to public. Beach, as we know, premiered months ago during that special Mewseum installation in Los Angeles.

Directed by the Bacon -team, Martin De Thurah, Adam Hashemi and Lasse Martinussen. The eight weird costumes (like the one shown in the above image) were designed by Henrik Vibskov.

There is a contest running alongside the release of the video. If you drive people to check it out, you could win some rare one of a kind prints (above images) carefully selected from last year’s Mewseum. Click here for full details!!!

Also… don’t forget to click on the banner below to get some cool avatars, banners etc…

There is also a new remix (of Beach) by one of Denmark’s most famous electronic musicians. You can vote for Trentemøller on Soundvenue’s High 5. In some countries the song is also available on iTunes where the sound quality is better than the aforementioned link makes you believe. The actual track is approximately eight minutes long.