Pop star finds a new home and following in Beacon
After a gig at the Industrial Arts Brewing Co. in Beacon, guitarist Josh Stark of the Vibeke Saugestad Band returns to break down his gear after going outside to smoke a cigarette. “I love playing with this group,” he says.
Two hours earlier, the band took advantage of their wireless setup to dance and twirl like unleashed children.
The first time Saugestad, who stands 5-foot-11 in heels, waded into the crowd, she stepped up to straddle two curved plastic chairs. The stunt looked dangerous. Later, after hopping on a table, two spectators volunteered as spotters, holding it steady until the dismount.
“I remember seeing people close to me, but when you’re playing, it’s all a blur,” Saugestad says. “Good thing nothing happened.”
Saugestad achieved stardom in her native Norway in the mid-1990s with the band Weld, leading her to sign with Sony and Universal. “I never lived up to what they wanted,” she recalls. “Someone said I was the least ambitious person they ever met. The handlers had a lot of plans and tried to pair me with other songwriters, but I had to stay true to my vision and write my songs.”
After Weld disbanded, Saugestad played with a “mellow duo” and a “noise rock” group, according to her website, and launched her own record label. In 2008, two singles off her most recent album (for now) became indy radio darlings in the U.S.: “Tonight,” which appeared on Little Steven’s Underground Garage compilation, The Coolest Songs in the World, Vol. 8, and “He’s Peculiar.”
At that point, she detached from rock ’n’ roll and turned toward a job translating novels from English and Swedish to Norwegian. In Spain, she met Ken Fox, the bass player for garage-rock mainstays The Fleshtones, and they fell in love. He moved to Beacon in 2005, they married in 2012 and she arrived in 2014.
At a gig on Feb. 21, Fox kicked around shiny blue sequined shoes, taking advantage of empty spaces in “17 Hours” to lay down busy fills.
The band delivered a miniclinic on how to make an energetic and entertaining 14-song musical and theatrical show look easy by executing tight consensus endings, supplying harmonious backup vocals with precision and pulling off shifts in tempo or abrupt stops and starts without a hitch. The set had people bouncing like pogo sticks.
Drummer Adam Napell wore a T-shirt touting The Veatles. “Some of the guys think we should be Vibeke Saugestad and the Somethings,” she said. “That’s an inside joke.” Her simple, hooky tunes evoke the Fab Four’s catchy melodies, upbeat sound and occasional chime of a complicated chord.
Saugestad grew up listening to ABBA; most of her songs are up-tempo. During an exuberant rendition of “Quality Control,” guitarist Mark Westin bounded across the stage to cavort with Stark and almost knocked over his lead singer.
The band cohered in September 2023 for the final bash at Dogwood on East Main Street in Beacon (now Cooper’s) after Saugestad, a regular patron, decided to dust off five of her rock tunes.
Since then, the group has gigged at Quinn’s, Happy Valley Arcade and venues in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts. She is writing new material with plans to record at Beacon AV Lab.
“Though short, the Dogwood set was such a blast, and we had the right chemistry,” she says. “It’s always about joy and having fun. If someone comes up to me after a show and says my songs make them happy, that is the best compliment I could ever get.”
For more about Saugestad and her band, see vibeke.rocks.
