Shining Played on Top of a Cliff in Norway (Video!)

Summers in Scandanavia are truly magical. After a winter of nothing but utterly bleak, unforgiving darkness, natives take FULL advantage of the infinite sunlight for the brief time they have it. Those of us who have grown up in temperate places can surely understand the mindset, even if we’ve never experienced the full depravity of a Scandinavian winter. Those of you who grew up in places like California or Florida… I feel sorry for you. Experiencing the wonder and joy that summer brings can only truly be appreciated by knowing what you’re missing.

Which is precisely why insane things like this happen only in the northernmost region of the world: Norwegian blackjazz outfit Shining played a gig on top of the 2300 foot (700 meters) Trolltungo (“Troll’s Tongue”) cliff this past weekend! As if that wasn’t epic enough, they did it on the summer solstice, the longest day of the year, in a locale where the sun barely sets.

Norwegian national news outlet NRK has the report. Google Translate does a fine enough job of communicating the sentiment, including some choice quotes from the band.

Trolltunga is about a five hour drive from Bergen. Although the band was flown in by helicopter, some 300 onlookers watched the concert, a few who flew in from as far away as Australia just to catch it and some who just happened to be hiking by.

Given Shining’s history of documenting performances in other out-of-the-ordinary locales we’re sure they captured this momentous performance for release at a later date. For now, here’s a compilation of a few clips put together by a fan:

Thanks: Frode J.