20th July
We decided to test the night life of Leknes for the first time, and decided to go to ”The Basement”, which is the night club/bar which has been around for the longest. Of what we have heard it is only people there at Saturdays, so that’s the day we went.
It was said norwegians is starting partying late, comparing with swedish people, and drink at home before going out at about midnight-1 o ‘clock in the morning. So we did the same, and were out at about 1 o clock.
When we came there we saw people smoking at the outside, and with no queue.
We had expected the 150 NOK entrance fee, but there was none. If it had to do with that they missed it because the guard was not there at the moment (or not caring about it), or if it has to do with rivalry from the new bar in town, we don’t know.
Prices in the bar was pretty ok to be Norway. Could have expected it to be higher in the nightclub, but good for us, it weren’t.
The club was very simple and people had their jackets hanging around so I wasn’t sure there even existed a wardrobe to hang them in. After asking one of the regulars, I got to know there was one (but seemed well hidden). Comparing Stockholm this is a big difference. You can’t enter a club without being forced to hang in your jacket usually (for an extra fee). And the wardrobe use to be very visible right after the entrance cashier.
The music played was dancable at times, but not many was doing that. Some people were jumping up and down the stage where a laptop were located with Spotify running, changing to their favorite song (which wasn’t necessarily the other peoples favorite). So sometimes you could see only 1 dancing.
As I thought this is how it works there, I jumped up the stage too, waiting for my turn to change song. I got a ”Don’t change the song!” kind of whisper in Norwegian from some young girls just leaving the stage after having turned on their favorite. I didn’t have the plan to change any song (of course) so I waited for the one played now to be over, to put on mine and glanced at the laptop and mouse to see where everything was located until later (it was not so easy to see in the dark).
Under me I had a lot of cables.
Suddenly it was a ”hack” in the song, and people came up the stage, telling me to go down. If it was the internet being bad because of itself, or if something happened with the cable (not likely as the other people would have the same problem then) I don’t know. But I hadn’t even touched the laptop, that is for sure. There were some people telling me that it was a good song and that I was good DJ, when I politely replied: ”I haven’t touched the computer, so it’s not me playing it”.
Anyway… I had to leave the stage as the people in the club was not supposed to be there; and I wondered how to change song then? (There is no DJ in the club.)
And I got told to ask for the wished for song in the bar.
So I put myself close to the bar and waited for a bartender to ask for the song.
From the bartender I got told that they were too busy to change songs this day. So eventually it looked like we were in a club with no DJ, playing songs in a playlist none was dancing to, and that it was not possible to help out with changing to songs the guests would like to dance to. Funny place… or not… 😉
We decided to try out the new place instead next time we are going out in Leknes, ”Surfer”.
As the end we can say that there is nice guests in the club, but the place itself is not particularly good.
Comparing bartenders in Stockholm (or other bigger cities) with The Basement’s bartenders (or if it was just this bartender), I can say that bartenders in Stockholm are 10 times more busy every day, without complaining they are busy. It looked like quite an easy job to serve people in Leknes. Not many people at all at the bar.
A taxi home to Skreda from The Basement (or other Leknes places) costs about 250 NOK.
What happens in Skreda 