Being a live performer is a completely different craft
from sitting in a room or a studio, writing and producing music.
I never really had the intention of ending up performing
or starting with DJing or anything.
The music industry was so far away that it was very much a dream,
not something he was actually pursuing.
When I met him, he was basically a kid, mostly sitting in his room gaming,
hanging with his friends, and going to school, just you know,
like a regular kid.
I wasn't that kind of a person who would go in front of the class
and have a performance or presentation or anything.
I really, really hated to do that kinda stuff.
The explosive success of Faded was quickly followed by the expectations
to what Alan could and should be as a live artist.
And at that point, he had never set his feet on a stage.
In the early days of 2016, just a month after we released Faded,
we realized that the demand for Alan to make his live debut was eminent.
Within the matter of weeks we booked his live debut,
which was an online stream TV performance at the X Games in Oslo, Norway.
You need to understand at this point there was actually nothing in place
in terms of the live operations.
So everything had to be done more or less from scratch.
There were so many hours that went into preparations.
I'm practicing on DJing.
So there was a lot of work to be done in a very short period of time.
You know, if people really understood what kind of work, and how much effort,
energy, and resources that are put into visuals, lighting,
how to put together and structure the set, potential guest vocalists,
guest musicians, strings, which we had-- you know, it's a pretty complex
and pretty big operation together,
and especially when you do it for the first time.
Making it through that first performance, I guess was in many ways a relief.
But we also quickly realized there was a lot of work to be done
and a lot of improvements that had to be made.
With a full-scale festival tour throughout Europe just eight weeks away,
well we really had to get our grind on.
I was so super nervous.
Yeah, I was like, "Oh my God!
I can't believe I'm doing this."
Then came the phone call.
Hi, guys.
We got a call from the US.
Does Alan wanna do support on a Rihanna tour?
I was like, "Okay, can't say 'no' to this.
Do I really dare to say 'yes'?"
I think every rookie makes mistakes and certainly so did Alan as well.
The big difference though is that most people are fortunate enough
to do that within, you know, their pre-production rehearsals or whatever.
Alan did it on his first show on the first leg of the Rihanna tour
in front of 70,000 people.
I was unlucky and actually hit the cue button on more of the songs
and then I messed up.
♪ I can't calm down ♪
♪ Searching for so-- ♪
Okay, that wasn't supposed to happen, but...
Alan in that part of his career that he was, should be doing mistakes.
I hate myself for every mistake that I make,
but I also know that making mistakes and learning from them
is an important part of the process.
If I didn't make any mistakes,
then I probably wouldn't have been where I am today.
♪ Where are you now ♪
Once he got warm, he really picked up the pace.
He was basically a frontrunner in a rat race
of more or less 30 festivals in nine weeks.
It feels like that summer pretty much flew by in 15 seconds.
♪ Were you only imaginary ♪
♪ Where are you now ♪ 69 00:04:35,209 --> 00:04:34,500 ♪ Where are you now ♪
♪ Another dream ♪
♪ Where are you now ♪
♪ Another dream ♪
♪ The monster's running wild inside of me ♪
♪ I'm faded ♪
♪ So lost, I'm faded ♪
♪ I'm faded ♪
♪ So lost, I'm faded ♪
Facing the crowd used to be one of my biggest fears in life.
So to overcome that fear was indeed a magical feeling.
I never really thought that I would learn and grow this much
in such a short period of time.
In early 2017, I flew with him to Miami to catch his show at Ultra,
more or less exactly one year after Alan made his live debut.
And to stand there and watch that 19-year-old engaging, exciting,
and conquering a crowd of 15,000 people,
well to me that was a true testament in many ways
to the growth and the evolution that he'd been through,
not only as a performer but as a person.
And anyone who's been on the road can tell you that life on tour is exhausting.
It's challenging, it's tiring, and it's not nearly as glamorous
as it's set out to be.
In many ways life on the road is like a loop.
You need a lot of rest
and you don't get a lot of rest when you're traveling.
That is quite a challenge.
What you do all day
is basically consisting of a never-ending repetitive loop
of A) you start out jumping on a plane, fly to a new country and a new city,
get to the hotel, check in, get out of the hotel to the backstage,
do some promo, on to the stage, do your show.
And it's all over again.
There's really no place like home.
So it always feels good to come back home to Bergen, back to my family and friends.
But to be honest, after a couple of days at home,
I really just want to get back on the road.