Trick number 1: crowdsurfing

Datarock has been touring the world for years now since releasing their self titled debut album in 2005. It’s been working out well for them thus far, and as long as crowds have showed up to concerts and the album has gradually gotten a bigger release, the band has avoided pressure from their label to go back to the studio to produce the next big Fa Fa Fa.

The new album, Red, isn’t as immediate as the old one, but still has some songs with great potential, though during the show at Øya, they leant heavily on old material.

Trick number 2: put the drummer front and center

Their current hit song, Give It Up, started off the show and was directly followed by Fa Fa Fa to kickstart the audience. It can be really dangerous to bang out your two biggest crowd pleasers during any concert, and especially at a festival, where only a fraction of the audience can be expected to be hardcore fans.

They tried making up for the prematureness of the setlist by unabashing appeals to the crowd, and though every band I saw during the festival made sure to comment on the beauty of the audience, no one did it more than Datarock. Couple that with a drummer who uncharacteristically left the drum kit to warm up the crowd even more, red smoke and huge red balloons that someone failed to mention to the band would probably underperform in the wind outdoors, Datarock pulled every trick out of their bags to please Øya.

Trick number 3: give the crowd your clothes

That makes it a bit more OK that they actually seemed to be performing with a prerecorded backing track for most of the concert, but still, that’s a bit 2004 Ashley Simpson, no? Datarock left us with Time of My Life from Dirty Dancing booming from the speakers, which they’ve been ending every concert with for years now and frontman Fredrik Saroa stripping off and throwing his tracksuit into the crowd.

Tricks are fun and all, but I’ve seen them all before and even though they have a new album out and one would think be ready to move on, Datarock has grown a bit stale. Don’t get me wrong, it was a party, but a Datarock show is no longer the time of your life.

Trick number 4: Balloons and red smoke