Last year’s 25th anniversary of Øya Festival was a big one, but this year’s edition was a stormer. Headliners included Charli xcx, Chappell Roan and Queens Of The Stone Age (returning after last year’s appearance was cancelled due to an illness in the band), but even so, the locals were a formidable presence at the island festival last month.
girl in red, the alias of singer-songwriter and producer Marie Ulven Ringheim, for example, was inescapable; her music could be heard blasting out of cars, clubs and bars all over Oslo, and she pulled one of the biggest crowds at the festival.
Each year, the team behind Øya Festival has made a point of stacking the lineup with Norwegian artists. It's a chance to celebrate local heroes like girl in red and GiddyGang, and remind the crowds her to see Charli and Chappell that Norway has plenty to offer. As it turned out, more often than not, it was the locals who drew the biggest crowds.
Festival-goers were treated to a well-rounded and eclectic showing from the Norwegians who proved their diverse music scene is past due its flowers.
From Afrobeats to alt-rock, here are five acts that stole the show at this year’s Øya Festival.
It’s to Øya Festival’s credit that despite booking line-up titans like Chappell Roan, Charli xcx, and Queens Of The Stone Age on the bill, they’ve made it a policy to always close the festival with a homegrown act. This year, it was the turn of Norwegian singer-songwriter Marie Ulven, aka girl in red.
Ulven last played at the festival back in 2018 so this was a homecoming show of sorts, and for the locals who’ve been tapped into her journey in that time, it was clearly a poignant way to end Øya 2025. Everywhere we went, you could hear her music playing out of cars or in cafes, and hearing a whole crowd getting behind an artist like that is really something.
It didn’t matter that much if you didn’t know her music, her super-charming folk pop needs no context or explanation. If you are unfamiliar, last year’s If I Could Make It Go Quiet is absolutely heaving with impossibly likeable songwriting and absolutely your best entry point. Other notable mentions include “Dead Girl In The Pool”, “Bad Idea!”, and her cover of Maggie Rogers’ “Say It”. They’re not strictly dancey, but a sad banger is still a banger.
Giddygang & Vuyo + Friends
Another favourite among the locals was jazz-hip hop collective GiddyGang who filled out the Park Theatre quickly and could probably have warranted a bit more room.
Marked out by their smoky, soulful, jazz-rap sound, GiddyGang are another act with a big following in Norway. Over the years, they’ve collaborated with Robert Glasper, Mac Ayres and Jazzy Jeff, and they’re constantly booked up for festival season.
This year’s set at Øya Festival saw them connect with regular collaborator Vuyo and several other artists for a loose, improvisational set, which is honestly when they’re at their best. Tracks like low-slung funk gem “Believe It” and “Head Over Heels” give a pretty good snapshot of that unhurried, free-flowing style, but it’s really in live settings that they excel.
Tolou’s bright and breezy combo of Afrobeats, pop and R&B delivered a welcome mood-boost in the Circus tent. Born in Tromsø, one of the northernmost cities in Norway, to a Nigerian father and Norwegian mother, Tolou’s first foray into music, surprisingly, was as the singer in her brother’s metal band. One or two very sharp left turns later and she’s now finetuned a sound that marries Scandi-pop and West African influences.
Flanked by dancers and bolstered by a fun and colourful stage set, Tolou took to the stage with a shredded, sunshine-yellow skirt and plenty of vocal power to fill the cavernous Circus stage. “Coco” is by far her biggest jam, melding funk-heavy Afro-R&B rhythms with upbeat Scandi-pop cheer. Elsewhere, “Dem Boyz” was another big crowd pleaser, summoning enough 2000s pop nostalgia to bring in the uninitiated.
If it was slow jams you were looking for at this year’s Øya Festival, then Haugesund-hailing Mabira was your guy. One of the key proponents of Scandinavia’s modest but growing R&B scene, Mabira’s signature sound ties in jazzy grooves and swinging Afro rhythms. Taking to the Garden Stage on the Saturday afternoon, Mabira and his live band gave us a chilled, but warming showcase of his eclectic sound.
If it’s that Afrobeats edge you’re after, tracks like the smouldering “Denial” with Norwegian rhymer Dutty Dior and the bumping “Rendezvous” are probably your two best starting points if you want the most representative taste of Mabira’s sound. Arguably even more popular among fans, though, is “Aldri igjen”, a much more straight-down-the-line R&B track he made with Norwegian pop singer Nessi and production trio FRAM.
Another barn-stormer of an act, Brenn proved that Norway’s rep for live music is well-earned. On a bill that also included Kneecap, leaving your mark is no mean feat.
As soon as they opened with the iconic theme from 2001: A Space Odyssey, they had the crowd rapt. After that, it was a volley of shoegaze riffs and hazy vocals hit even harder in a live setting. Edvard Smith Save and Rémy Malchère Pettersen were the perfect ringleaders, whipping up circle pits and walls of death in a crowd that knew every word from their trio of albums.
This wasn’t just pure noise, though, theirs was a well-oiled machine. They made full use of their sludgy Drop D tuning, but there was no shortage of warmth and groove to counter the dramatic clouds and patchy downpours. There’s an argument to be made for Save and the boys to take a headline slot (as they did for their mid-pandemic 2021 set), but actually this was the perfect jolt of energy to see us through the evening.