John Grant is playing at Bergenfest Thursday, 12 of June.
The last 13 years have been an astonishing era for Grant, since the boy from Michigan released his belated debut solo album Queen Of Denmark after a prolonged exile from the music business. After the album was voted MOJO Magazine’s best of 2010, Grant’s profile has risen through a series of rapturously received and chart-bothering albums that entwined acutely melodic chamber-pop with darkly glittering dance music tropes, centred on synth-pop and disco. Against this brooding and inventive backdrop and channelled through his glorious dulcet baritone, Grant unleashed autobiographical laments and diatribes, as painful and intimate as they were caustic and savagely funny.
If Grant’s records are beautiful cut jewels, perhaps his star shines even brighter on stage, typically backed by an empathic band drawn from Icelandic, American and British musicians, where this endearing character’s deeply personal sagas trigger an immediate response from his fanatical following.
In other words, the boy from Michigan has done good, often against the odds, quelling the demons and creating some of the most resonant singing and songwriting of the 21st century.
We are so excited to present John Grant as one of the artists for Bergenfest 2025!