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Aurora

warrior + weirdo tattoo

art by luchichufer ✨

art by ranya33354

This past weekend, fans flocked to Randall’s Island Park in NYC for the inaugural Panorama Festival. We had the chance to sit down and talk with some of our favorite artists from the ultra-cool lineup.  Photos by Serge Levin, words by Allison Stubblebine The Silversun Pickups are an alternative rock band hailing from Silverlake, Calif. consisting of Brian Aubert, Nikki Monninger, Chris Guanlao, and Joe Lester.  What’s the most exciting part about engaging a large festival crowd, and how did you learn to do that? Brian Aubert: Playing to a lot of people is so much easier than playing to four of your friends in little clubs. That’s scary. So I think that by the time you’re lucky enough to get to this it’s easier. We always like playing to new people too, and at these shows you get a lot of people who are just curious about you and I think that’s exciting.  Chris Guanlao: The energy is totally different in our set [from] our normal headlining show. Our normal headlining show, there has to be kind of a flow, a movement to your set, but then with a festival it’s just more energy. BA: You just get out there and make a big noise.  Do you still get nervous before a big performance?  BA: No, every time we get asked that we always think we should. There have been times, literally, where people are backstage talking to us and we go, “Hold on a second,” and we go out and play, then come back and go, “Now, what were you saying?”  Nikki Monninger: It’s like Jason Schwartzman in Rushmore when he’s about to wrestle.  BA: Oh I love that, you just dropped a serious reference. That’s awesome. A lot of times, we do fall on the floor like that. Nervous though – I don’t get nervous at all, I get antsy, but I don’t get nervous. If we had to go out there and juggle, or something – Joe Lester: Read poetry… BA: People tend to think that because I’m the singer that I want to give speeches and things like that, but I hate it. It’s so frightening. But playing, that’s easy. Do you have any pre-show rituals? CG: I have a ton. I’m OCD, I’m just stretching, and that’s where I can get rid of my nervous energy.  NM: If I see Christopher stretching, then I’ll make fun of him stretching.  JL: Nikki’s ritual is to make fun of Christopher. BA: Nikki has a preshow ritual, actually, to time out exactly how she can get ready at the latest possible time, so when she’s exactly finished we’re about to play that second.  CG: She can also curl her hair in two minutes, it’s insane. If we go on at 10, she’s like, 9:57.  What’s the craziest thing you’ve seen at a festival?  BA: We opened up our tour bus and Judge Reinhold was on it. That was strange. In Arkansas, actually. He was a cool guy. CG: He gave us shirts with his face on it.  JL: We played Coachella, I can’t remember what year it was, but Amy Winehouse, her little guest lounge, was right next to us. She was super friendly. She said hi to me, and then turned around and climbed up a palm tree like a spider monkey. It was the most amazing thing I’d ever seen. BA: I remember, I bumped into her. I was like, “Oh, I’m so sorry!” And she was so little, she looked up at me and kissed me on the cheek and went, “It’s okay babe.”  Lindsey Stirling is a violinist whose style combines various genres with her dancing abilities. Her YouTube channel is the platform which brought her center stage,showcasing her original work and covers with popular artists such as John Legend and the Pentatonix.  What’s the most exciting part about engaging a large festival crowd, and how did you learn to do that? Well, festivals are a different animal than a show, it’s a little bit of a challenge. You don’t know, are these my fans? Have they heard of me? Did they just kind of overhear some music and stop? You know that probably a good chunk of the crowd doesn’t know who you are. It’s kind of an uphill battle, you get to win them over. As you progress through a set, you can see people warm up to your music, you can see them start to jam out. That winning over a crowd is something that’s super fun and that you don’t get to do at just a regular show.  Do you still get nervous before a big performance? I do, I always get nervous. Not only just the fact that I want to play and do my best, but it was so hot. I was literally just afraid of making it through the set because it’s a very physical, very dance heavy routine that we do, me and my dancers, but we made it through still standing! [We] danced ‘til the end. But I think I’ll always get nervous, and that means I care.  Do you have any pre-show rituals? I always meditate before every show. I have these mantras that I say, and I visualize before every show. Warm up, play through the songs, stretch, and then my dancers, band, and crew will make a big circle and say a group prayer together, which always makes me relaxed.  What’s the craziest thing you’ve seen at a festival?  One time we were being driven to the airport to catch a flight straight after a festival that we did in the Philippines, and we were stuck in traffic and it wasn’t moving and we were afraid we were going to miss our flight. Our driver took us across the median into oncoming traffic and we made it to the airport! We were all screaming in this van. The Philippines, they do what they want.  Who are your aesthetic inspirations?  I get a lot of inspiration from anime characters. I love cartoon characters, and stuff like that. But also, I just love big hair, so anyone from Gwen Stefani, to Emily Autumn – she always had big, huge hair. But honestly, a lot of Final Fantasy characters, I love to see what they do with their hair. I’m super into wigs, I wear them for fun. If you can change your hair for the day, all of a sudden you have blue hair and you didn’t kill your own.  Daughter is a London-born indie folk trio comprised of members Elena Tonra, Remi Aguilella and Igor Haefeli.  What’s the craziest thing you’ve seen at a festival?  Elena Tonra: We once did a festival, I think it was in Sweden, and there was 24-hour daylight. The sun never set, so that was crazy just because it was so disorientating. We were awake forever.  What’s the most exciting part about engaging a large festival crowd, and how did you learn to do that? ET: I think what’s really lovely about playing festivals is it’s not your crowd. There’s this kind of nervous energy that’s quite positive and it keeps you on an edge, which can be quite good for a show. It’s so nice to win a crowd over, it feels really great if you can engage with that many people. With our music as well, it’s not necessarily festival kind of music. It’s sometimes a bit sad, so it is really lovely when you get a warm reaction to what you’re doing.  Remi Aguilella: We have done festivals for four, five years now. It started with super small tents and people discovering us, and we grew bigger and bigger. I can’t imagine going from a super small stage playing with friends to suddenly the next summer playing on the main stage. I think the fact that we’ve had a bigger transition has been really great to kind of discover where our festival sound should be and to figure out how to do it.  Do you still get nervous before a big performance?  ET: All the time. I’m like, “I’m going to vomit.” I’m the worst person before a show. It’s weird, it hasn’t really ever gone away, I think it’s gotten progressively worse, the pre-show fear. I feel like I start having nightmares about playing live as well. It’s very strange, but it’s great. When you’re actually up on the stage and it takes a couple of songs in staring at the shoes to suddenly look up and go, “Shit, actually we’re here.” I think it’s within my personality to not necessarily feel totally comfortable on the stage.  Do you have any pre-show rituals?  ET: We’ve got a little routine of high fives we do before we go on stage.  Foals is an alternative rock band from Oxford. Members Yannis Philippakis, Jack Bevan, Jimmy Smith, Walter Gervers, and Edwin Congreave formed the band in 2005.  Their song “Mountain At My Gates” reached #1 on US Alternative charts in 2015.  What’s the craziest thing you’ve seen at a festival?  Jimmy Smith: I saw people playing in a big puddle at Glastonbury that was made out of stuff that came out of port-a-loos.  Yannis Philippakis: Poo. JS: Poo, basically. I think they’re out of their minds.  YP: Basically the whole of Glastonbury is pretty much the weirdest thing that’s happened. What’s the most exciting part about engaging a large festival crowd? YP: We played in Toronto and we went out to watch a bit of LCD [Soundsystem], and there were people coming up saying they had never seen us, and that some of them hadn’t heard of us and that they loved the show. I guess feeling like we’re converting people. Do you go about preparing for the performance during festivals than you do during tour? JS: Well usually you get a bit of a shorter set so you have to pack it in with the bangers. YP: Also normally we wouldn’t really choose to perform at four in the afternoon in thirty-six-degree [Celsius] heat.  Do you still get nervous before a big performance?  YP: Yeah, the really big ones. Stuff like Glastonbury, Reading and Leeds, but not on a daily basis. Our drummer gets a little nervy, generally flying, spiders. He’s sort of a timid little fish. JS: In a big pond.  Do you have any pre-show rituals? YP: We drink quite a lot of booze. Me and Jimmy drink the same drinks before the shows, pretty much.  What drinks? YP: I do vodka Red Bulls with bourbon.  JS: With bourbon? YP: No, it’s vodka Red Bulls and then bourbon. JS: It’s always vodka Red Bulls isn’t it.  YP: Well, you do the Powerade one as well.  JS: That’s my stage drink. I realized you get a bottle of Powerade, empty a bit out, put loads of vodka in it and mix it up.  YP: It sort of rehydrates you as it’s sucking all the moisture out.  JS: You reach a perfect equilibrium.  I f you could create your dream festival, who would be in the lineup? JS: Fugazi headlining. YP: The original lineup Pixies around Doolittle, Sonic Youth around Daydream Nation. JS: Radiohead around Kid A. YP: And Wu-Tang around Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers).  Aurora Aksnes is dreamy electropop singer-songwriter AURORA, hailing from Norway.  What’s the most exciting part about engaging a large festival crowd, and how did you learn to do that? It’s nice because it's like when you own a dog and it loves you no matter what. And you know that every time when you get home, even after leaving him alone for six hours, he will love you so much and be so excited when come in through the door. But the cat, you know it likes you if you feed it, and then you have to work a lot to get the same amount of love as you would get from the dog. The festival is just like a cat, and club shows are like the dog, because people have paid to see you and they are so ready to give you lots of love, and they know who I am. That’s what is really fun about festivals, you never know what might happen. It’s nice experiencing the crowd on the first song and the last, because it’s [like] getting to know someone – the flirting, and the smiling, and giving all you can to win them over, which is a very fun experience. Sometimes it works really well, and sometimes it doesn’t work that well, and it’s nice if you don’t know what to expect.  What’s the craziest thing you’ve seen at a festival?  I met this very young, beautiful woman backstage and she was very sweet, very nervous for her show. But her band had hats like bears and wool shirts, and she came out of a baby crib, and it was very nice but it was very strange. I think she had a baby theme, but she was quite sensual, which was very confusing. Not the strangest thing, but interesting. Do you still get nervous before a big performance? Not in the same way. It’s like swimming. It’s really scary the first time, and you can die. That’s how you feel. But then you learn that you don’t die every time you play, and you get a bit less nervous. But I get a bit nervous before the show because I don’t know what will happen or how many people, if anyone, will come see me play. But it’s nice not being that nervous because I’m nervous all the time about everything, so it’s nice having a break when I need to be in the zone.  Do you have any pre-show rituals? I like to do some yoga, just for ten minutes. A few of my favorite positions just to loosen up my body so it’s ready to move because I get these twitches that can be a bit harsh on my neck. I don’t know how, or why, so I have to warm up my neck. Then I like to get warm, really warm, jump around until I can’t breathe anymore and try to catch my breath again before going on stage, which isn’t a really good idea but I do it quite often. And then I like going through Pi, in my head, like 3.141592 and I just go through that, as many as I can, because I like to remember numbers, they are very easy. Then I try to get in the mood, I try to think about everything that makes me angry, so I can get a big personal gain about getting frustrations out.  Where do you find aesthetic inspiration? I just like bites of things. I like old things, I like things that smell. My wardrobe smells like attic, it’s very strange. It’s weird how you get inspired without knowing it. I just like when you can look at people and see that they are interesting, wearing themselves on the outside, which I think is very inspiring.  Aluna Francis and George Reid are the British electronic music act AlunaGeorge. What’s the craziest thing you’ve seen at a festival?  Aluna Francis: Glastonbury is really good for attracting people who will role play in a really, really intense way. So every year there’s this couple that pretend to be old and they’ll get in your way, that’s their thing. They’ll go, “Oh, sorry dear. Oh, would you like a cup of tea?” And you’ll be like, “Oh, God, do you need some help?” And they’re like, “Oh, yes, my knees are going. I shouldn’t really be here.” Then you see that they’re wearing makeup, and you’re like, “You’re an actor?” What’s the most exciting part about engaging a large festival crowd? AF: I think that the exciting thing is that people are really prepared to leave their normal daily restrictions behind psychologically. They’re ready to not be the person that they are when they’re out and about in their daily lives.  Do you still get nervous before a big performance?  AF: The whole process of the stage is an ongoing one for me. I’m not a natural performer, I haven’t got that personality, really. Things that make me nervous are when I know that something technically is wrong. When I know that somebody on my team is brand new and has never done that before, or that I know that the boys’ equipment has broken. But other things that don’t make me nervous are weird. I was supporting Katy Perry and my stage manager came up to me and said, “Three minutes ago the stage was shut because the storm was so bad, but we’ve opened it so you can play or you don’t have to play, but if I say get off the stage I mean immediately because there’s an electrical fault.” I was like, “Okay, fine, cool, thanks, bye.”  What are your pre-show rituals? AF: I have tons of preparation stuff. I’ve built a large amount of preparity activities. There’s some kinesiology warmups, vocal warmups, pilates warmups, tai chi warmups. I never get around to all of them but I usually try to get a couple of them in.  William Phillips is Tourist, a Grammy-Award winning songwriter and electronic musician. What’s the most exciting part about engaging a large festival crowd, and how did you learn to do that? A lot of artists are really just selling themselves when they’re at a festival, and you can kind of gain new fans, and people can have a moment when they didn’t really expect to enjoy themselves and they do. You can appeal to people who might not ever listen to their music.  Do you still get nervous before a big performance? I get nervous before small performances! Absolutely. I think we’re all kind of scared of failing, and if you stand in front of a few thousand people, it’s quite unnatural for a human being to do. I’d like to meet the person who says they don’t get nervous.  What are your pre-show rituals? A gin and tonic.  What’s the craziest thing that you’ve seen at a festival? Skrillex stole my rider once. Bless him. Skrillex stole my rider so I gave him a good telling-off.  Mish Way, Kenneth William, Anne-Marie Vassiliou, and Lindsey Troy make up Canadian punk-rock band White Lung, with a sound and attitude true to their DIY roots.  What’s the most exciting part about engaging a large festival crowd, and how did you learn to do that? Mish Way: Well, you know, growing up and doing DIY punk venues and hardcore shows, the transition from a small, sweaty basement to a small, sweaty club to a big stage feels weird, and I think that I really got over it when we played Fuji Rock Japan in 2014 because the crowd was huge and wild and Japanese people are the best. They’d clap incessantly and then stop and wait for the next song. The politeness overrules. I got really comfortable there and realized that it’s just the same thing. You’ve got to bring the same energy and the same idea, and it’s no different than a shitty club show.  What’s the craziest thing you’ve seen at a festival?  MW: When we played Bonnaroo, I saw a lot of people very high on psychadelics, face down in the dirt, ass up, which is always a nice thing to see. Because we played the Sunday, sot they were all down. And the shantytowns of tents – I’m not a big camper, so that’s pretty admirable to me.  Do you still get nervous before a big performance? MW: No, I used to quite a bit but now I know what I have to do. Any blunder is just another joke, I like to make jokes throughout the whole thing. My father embarrassed me a lot purposely when I was a young child, as well as my siblings, so I don’t get embarrassed very easily.  What are your pre-show rituals? MW: Mine is do a couple shots and drink lots of water and do my vocal exercises and just have fun. Grace Potter is a Vermont-born rock singer-songwriter with a huge voice, performing as a solo artist and with her band, Grace Potter and the Nocturnals.  What’s the most exciting part about engaging a large festival crowd, and how did you learn to do that? I think the whole thing about festivals is there’s the legacy of the unexpected. I just watched about these generator parties that they used to throw out in the desert, and the whole point of it was it’s not just anarchy for the sake of anarchy, it’s actually for the sake of the freedom to be able to let things unravel as they will, and I really love that. I think festivals are supposed to unravel a little bit, it’s supposed to catch people off guard, whether it’s the weather, or the cops coming, or it’s just a shit show and nobody’s having any fun, but the music is supposed to be the catalyst that carries that forward. So I think it’s a powerful thing because no one knows what is supposed to happen, and it’s creating chaos in a time when music doesn’t have a whole lot of chaos.  What’s the craziest thing you’ve seen at a festival?  I saw a kid light on fire one time. She wanted to do this thing where she was breathing fire, and so she took either lighter fluid or, I’m not sure what it was, it could have been some kind of alcohol, but she was blowing it in the fire and she lit herself on fire. But she was so cool about it, she dealt with it so well. It was like it had happened a million times. Do you still get nervous before a big performance?  I don’t get nervous, I get excited. I always look at it as the audience, they should be nervous because no one ever knows what’s going to happen. And my band is an amazing collective of people who are so focused on being great that they get a little bit nervous, and the thing that I enjoy the most is being able to lead that energy and channel that energy away from being nervous and into being engaged in an experience that you know is going to be like nothing else.  Do you have any pre-show rituals? When I sit down with the band, some days everyone is too hyper-excited, they’re coming from a million different angles, so we just have to get together and be settled for a second. So we’ll chant, or we will do something weird, sort of tribal, and kind of get everyone on the same page. Some nights everyone is kind of lethargic and I need to get them engaged in something other than whatever their day has been that’s so distracting. You can’t just force people to feel something, you have to settle your soul before you share it out with the world and bleed all over everybody. I think it’s a really important time. I would say it’s about a 7-10 minute ritual before the show, and it’s never the same twice. I’ve said crazy shit, like, “Alright everybody, tonight we are an alien spacecraft landing on a terrain we’ve never been on before, and these people all just want to sit on their picnic blankets, and our job is to abduct every single one of them.” Who do you get your style inspiration from? I get it from myself because I design my own clothing. I just made this shirt. I have my sewing machine on the road and I make my clothes.  New Jersey indie acoustic rock band The Front Bottoms is composed of members Brian Sella, Mat Uychich, Ciaran O'Donnell, and Tom Warren. This weekend, the band performed with Kevin Devine on bass, as Tom recently got married. What’s the most exciting part about engaging a large festival crowd, and how did you learn to do that? Brian Sella: Every one is very different, festival-wise. Being on tour, you can have a schedule, there’s a routine, you wake up, you do the sound check, but with a festival, you just wait around for hours. It’s a totally different experience, so it’s enjoyable. Do you like the festival thing better? Ciaran O'Donnell: I do like festivals, because after you play, you get to see a lot of other bands. What’s the craziest thing you’ve seen at a festival?  Mat Uychich: Probably people that I thought they were dead. They might have been - drinking all day in the heat. I’ve seen some scary things.  BS: Maybe just the amount of people at other festivals, to look out and see an ocean of people. It’s overwhelming to play in front of a lot of people sometimes. CO: I saw some people making love on the Ferris wheel at Coachella. Well, I don’t know if you could call it love.  Do you still get nervous before a big performance? BS: I do, I get very tense. Probably for two days leading up to it, I feel very anxious. For a festival, that’s another major difference. With the shows on tour you’re doing these shows and you can get into a flow and you’re not nervous. But, with something like this, it’s like, “Oh, when’s the last time you guys played? Like, a month ago? Today you’re going to play in front of thousands of people, so go up there and do your thing.” But these two guys and Tom who plays bass for us are very smooth and very calm and are very good at balancing me out before we go on.   Do you have any preshow rituals? BS: Stretch out. Make sure you take one last tinkle.  CO: You don’t want to be distracted on stage by feeling like you have to pee. It takes away from how fully you can commit to performing. That would be my advice to any performers out there. Make sure you empty your bladder. Check out more shots from Panorama: The National Sufjan Stevens Kendrick Lamar Blood Orange Sia Run The Jewels FKA Twigs DJ Khaled Arcade Fire Shop Music + Tech

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Starker Schneefall im Dorfgebiet von St. Anton am Arlberg. (02.02.2022)