Rants And Ramblings About Mobile Technology

I went to SRF in Norje Sweden to see some of my favorite bands.

Neal Morse was the big surprise. Both because I haven’t listened much to his solo albums (he was previously in Spock’s Beard; another one of my favorites), but also because it was so well performed, with a stage presence from all involved that was amazing. Sure, he sings Christian songs now, and he’s pretty serious about it, but the music’s still good. He even sang a duet with his son about finding back to your beliefs (or at least that was what I thought it was about).

Pete Trewavas from Marillion and Mike Portnoy from Dream Theater joined Neal to play the lovely We All Need Some Light from Transatlantic’s SMPTe (Transatlantic is/was a super group consisting of Pete, Mike, Neal and Roine Stolt). I read elsewhere that Transatlantic is rumoured to release a new album this year after a very long hiatus, so maybe this “cameo” was another indication this will actually happen. Mike also jumped in here and there, and even sang instead of Neal in one of the songs.

In comparison Marillion played on auto-gear (except for Steve Hogarth, the singer, that was literally all over the place), but it was nevertheless enjoyable. All songs were from the post-Fish era, as far as I could tell.

Kamelot was also great, and it was clear the Norwegian singer Roy Kahn was delighted by the response from the audience, that was very active even though it was raining heavily during their show (I was soaking wet). Sadly Roy couldn’t hit the high notes he manages on the studio recordings.

I also listened to a Pantera cover band that was remarkably professional, even though they were all quite young.

At the main stage played Jon Oliva’s Pain and Lita Ford. The first had a great guitarist and Jon Oliva was great at playing the piano, so it might be worth checking out their albums, but sound-wise it was not enjoyable at all. Lita Ford’s band played 80s pop-rock. Nothing for me.

Tomorrow it’s time for Dream Theater at the main stage. I hope James LaBrie will not lose his voice, that he tends to do at live shows.

So what were the mobile implications then?

Coverage

None to speak of. Some early in the day, but none during the afternoon.

Mobile services

It was possible to get the festival programme by sending in an SMS, but as there was no coverage this didn’t work. That was the only mobile service I spotted, and I had to watch a long ad/info rotator on a big screen before I spotted this was at all possible.

Why didn’t they put up one of those big LED panels that people could send SMSs to? Just for the fun of it.

E-mail

I had set up all relevant e-mail accounts on my phone before the trip. By using IMAP I was assured that e-mails were handled properly (as if accessed from a PC). But again, no coverage, so no e-mail, and so no possibility to do any work while at the festival. Not altogether bad though…

Voice calls

Oddly voice worked better, but how do you talk while standing a few meters from a stage during a concert?

Photography

Works fine for stage photos, provided the phone has optical zoom. Mine didn’t, so it was often hard to distinguish who were actually standing on stage. Therefore no photos today. Maybe tomorrow.

Posted by Anders Borg 00:28 | Permalink