Thomax & DJ Ivri @ Xplosif HHF 09

July 1st, 2009 | By Thomax

Big up to supreme organizer Tore Pang who brought me and Ivar (aka DJ Ivri) down to Stavanger for his annual Xplosif Hip Hop Festival. This year had some insane names coming through, including Jadakiss, Necro, Rock of Heltah Skeltah, Promoe & DJ Large, Ken Ring, el Axel, Lars Vaular and more!

Here’s my cell phone’s recollection of the trip:

Legendary can…candy shop.

My view from Stavanger Clarion Hotel. Here’s D-Block’s view. The building to the right connects to the building where the festival took place, so annoyingly close that I woke up from my precious nap due to Necro doing his soundcheck.

Pre-gig, Ivar hooked up his laptop w/serato & sampler and used the hotel room’s puny TV as a speaker. Countless machine gun rounds and airhorns went off, yet not a single SWAT Team crashed through the door. I guess they’re used to that stuff down west.

The hookup in Grottene before Ivar got his precious mixer and turntables installed. Personally, I’m just a laptop-DJ, so the touchpad on his laptop sufficed for me to play my 4-5 tracks.

As Ivar played 98% of the time due to my various levels of retardation (thanks for that, btw), the venue was packed with people, including Jadakiss, Necro, el Axel, Ken Ring, Lars Vaular, Girson, Bromstad Billionaires, several friendly(?) locals (Bvis, Skurke, Aras, J. Alvarado, Mikki etc), yet this is the one single picture I got to prove it. You can tell it’s from the first hour of the two-hour set, because the lights have yet to be turned on due to somebody blazing up next to one of the speakers.

If you wanna see some actual concert pics, scope out some more professional photography here and here.