I don't feel any pain. I don't feel time and space, says frontman Thomas Öberg over the phone from a hotel in Helsinki.
He describes the audience on the farewell tour as new fans with "the entire emotional spectrum activated" and old fans who cry.
We have the nostalgic and those who get their first kiss in parallel with each other. It's an incredibly bittersweet candy cane that's still pleasant to hold in your hand.
The feeling is understandable. The band's days with riot fences and "Tralala lilla molntuss, kom hit skall du få en puss" as song number 13 on the setlist are almost over.
We're not going to make a U-turn, like when Ozzy Osbourne was out on his "No more tours" number three. That's not going to happen, says Öberg.
Old crème fraiche
Instead, Bob Hund will be celebrated, among other things with the help of a parade orchestra that leads the audience to the concert, an exhibition and a food truck at Medborgarplatsen in Stockholm, with punky stews and falafel designed together with chefs and food researchers. At a meeting, Öberg got a lesson in sustainability and was challenged to eat a crème fraiche that had been in the fridge for five years.
There are two things I don't like: eating things I don't have control over and peer pressure. They exposed me to both and I survived. After that, I felt, damn it, it's not too late to learn something even in the late summer of life.
Öberg's attitude is that "curiosity is the world's oldest and cheapest source of energy", which makes him trust that "the audience's wisdom" will guide the Bob Hund members onwards after the last concert.
"Never so bad mood"
When he looks back on Bob Hund's history, Thomas Öberg doesn't want to flirt with all the stage dives that led to involuntary ambulance trips or romanticize the poor years when the whole band had the same hairstyle because they shared a hair trimmer, but he remembers the 90s when "some money was circulating".
It's never been as bad a mood in the band as when we were doing well, says Öberg.
He doesn't point out any successor among the younger generation of indie musicians, but says the field is wide open. Thomas Öberg's hope with every concert is that someone in the audience will think "I can do that better".
But I would say "don't do what we've done". It's an inhuman task. It takes 10,000 hours to get good at something, but it's taken 100,000 hours for Bob Hund.
After being formed in 1991, Bob Hund became part of the Swedish indiepop scene of the 1990s, where the center was Skånegatan in Stockholm. But the band differed from its contemporary rivals by drawing influences from a wide range, from Iggy Pop, Kraftwerk and American surf rock from the 1960s, and then mixing it all with a clear Skåne flavor from singer Thomas Öberg.
Bob Hund debuted in 1993 with the EP "Bob Hund". The following year, they released a self-titled full-length album. Since then, they have released, among other things, "Omslag: Martin Kann" (1996), "Jag rear ut min själ" (1998), "Stenåldern kan börja" (2001), "Ingenting" (2002), "Folkmusik för folk som inte kan bete sig som folk" (2009), "Det överexponerade gömstället" (2011), "Låter som miljarder" (2012), "Dödliga klassiker" (2016) and "0–100" (2019).
The band has also released two albums in English under the name Bergman Rock, "Bergman Rock" (2003) and "Bonjour baberiba pt II" (2005).
Bob Hund consists of singer Thomas Öberg, who also writes the lyrics, Jonas Jonasson, Conny Nimmersjö, John Essing, Mats Hellquist and Christian Gabel. Former member is Mats Andersson.
Currently, the farewell concert "Slutscenen" will take place at Zinkensdamm on 8/30. It will be preceded by a "Bob Hund week" in Stockholm starting 8/25. There will be, among other things, a poetry workshop, exhibition and conversation with Thomas Öberg.
