Quotes "Forget Eurovision. SPOT Festival is the best advert for Scandiwegian music..."
- Kieron Tyler, MOJO Magazine (UK)  "Put aside prejudices and check it out. Turns out there is more to Danish music than Barbie Girl..."
- Neil McCormick, The Daily Telegraph v. SPOT 2009 |
 Henrik Hamilton and Ginger Ninja contributed to a great Danish night. (Photo: Sara Lindbæk). It was clearly a festival crowd that came to the venue Indra, where The Beatles embarked on their Germany adventure 50 years ago. As soon as the music was over, three fourths of the audience hurried off to check out the next festival highlight, and only minutes before the next Danish band went on stage was the venue filled again. Such typical festival crowds let their feet do the talking. If they don’t like the music, they are long gone, but on this night at the Indra only few people did that, and in those rare cases there were plenty of subs outside.
So even though The Rumour Said Fires’ new-folk, Thee Attacks’ retro rock, Ginger Ninjas electro inspired indie and Kellermensch’s alternative metal are arguably a motley crowd (though handpicked according to the wishes of the German music business after the SPOT Festival) the quality was high enough to keep both the many industry people and the regular festival crowd there for the entire gigs all night. Incidentally, the “Danish quality” is exactly one of the characteristics that German music industry representatives almost invariably stress when asked about the Danish Night.
(Click here to read the music business comments).
“We are very close to having recreated the solid SPOT On Denmark Platform that we had put so much effort into in Berlin until regrettably the Popkomm trade show languished and was cancelled last year”, says MXD boss Thomas Rohde and continues, “At Popkomm we had full houses year after year for the Danish campaigns, but now it seems that we have managed to transfer that to Reeperbahn. This year we got more support from the Festival, and we have put a bit more into the promotion of the night. What’s more our move to a venue in the middle of the festival’s heart has really paid off – both when we are talking audience and industry people.”  Thomas Rohde (right) together with Carsten Holm (the Danish Broadcasting Corporation), who served as both DJ and presenter at the event. When it comes to German music business, well let me put it this way: I met a lot more of them at the Reeperbahn Festival. They were all here more or less. It’s impressive how quickly they have managed to capitalize on the gap that Popkomm left after their collapse last year– and to fill that gap! The competition is merciless. When you ask the German music business, most of them have already buried Popkomm. But our strategy is to keep an eye on the development and then decide where our investment will pay off better for Danish music.
Nomex Bar – with Obvious Potential Furthermore, Thomas Rohde is happy about the great start for the Nordic countries’ Nomex Bar in the Trade area. “It was an experiment – instead of the usual booth that you often have at trade shows. And it worked fine really – both in a network perspective and with events such as the show with Murder, who played a little acoustic session Friday. At least I think the Nomex Bar has terrific potential – maybe it could present and promote Danish music in the future – as a supplement to the showcase concerts at the Danish Night”, says Rohde about the bar, which received financial support from the Music committee of the Danish Arts Council. - - - The SPOT On Denmark concerts are organized by MXD and the SPOT Festival.
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