It all started in Dr. Wessel St., the main street of Kirkenes, back in 1987. The local office of the national radio, NRK, was making summer shows from every little town in Finnmark, and they wanted music, live from the street, from “Rock City Kirkenesâ€.
This was vacation time, so a few of us who wasn’t on holiday, came togheter and decided to make a blues jam. The band featured among several others Roy Hojem on bass, Erlend Gimse on drums and Yngve Grønvik on guitar. We hadn’t rehearsed, but agreed on a few songs we knew, like You Gotta Move and Sweet Home Chicago… It turned out quite good.
The three of us had long talked about starting a blues band, and now seemed a good time as we all were “between bandsâ€â€¦ The name Dr. Wessel gave itself as we started in the doctor’s street and we felt related to Lee Brillaux’ brilliant Dr. Feelgood…
Our first real gig was a few weeks later, at the 10 years anniversary party for Socialist Choir in Kirkenes. We thought these guys and girls would love to hear real rocking blues like Dr. Feelgood, ZZ Top and Johnny Winter songs, but no. We had to leave the stage early. Only one of the “choir boysâ€, leader Dagfinn Gjerde, liked us, he apologized and was very sorry, cause he was the one who had to tell us to leave.
A couple of weeks later we visited Dagfinn, drank his coffe, listened to his blues records and talked about artists, bands and music. Before we left the question that had been hanging in the air finally appeared: Would you like to sing in our band? The next day Dagfinn was part of Dr. Wessel.
We have since won the Finnmark Rock Championship, played at Molde International Jazz Festival with Delbert McClinton, played Varangerfestivalen three times, Petrozavodsk International Jazz Festival, Blues Festival in Vardø, played in Tromsø and all over Finnmark. We have been on TV and radio, played in our russian neighbour cities Nikel and Murmansk. We have done stages big and small, and continue to gig today, more than 20 years later, with the same musicians, Dagfinn, Roy, Erlend and Yngve.
Coming soon to a stage near you!
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