Back Page For One Night Only!: AURORA curates her dream gig

Oh my god, my headliner would be this band called TACOBITCH. It’s very techno and very fun to dance to, and I love any gigs that have a lot of dancing. I would have a lot of dancing because I love it. The music they do is very playful and very colourful, and they have these very strange masks and costumes, so you almost feel like you’re in some kind of carnival. It feels very otherworldly, so that’s very nice.

I think, even though the music is very different, they still fit together, and for a perfect evening, I would need music to touch the heart, the body and the mind. Obviously, TACOBITCH really touch the body when they play because it’s very danceable, and I would need something for the heart, so I’d have a drum circle of some kind. Something very percussion-heavy, that’s also quite meditative. Something a little spiritual but also very playful, like when people play in the street, there’s all these beautiful beats that you especially find in indigenous rhythms. Not really white people in a drum circle, but actual indigenous music that is ancient and you can feel that. Something like that, and I also love throat singing, so if we could have some percussionists with a throat singer, that could be really cool.

Not normally [for TACOBITCH’s shows], but for this night they would have to. I’m really fascinated by types of deep sea creatures, so maybe [I would dress as] some kind of jellyfish. I love them, I think they’re gorgeous, so I would love to be that just for the night.

I always pictured this as being outside in the woods, but it would also be cool if it kind of just happened anywhere. I think everyone would be standing - but it would be okay to sit, if you wanted. I just love to go to shows where they have a clear heartbeat, so they change my rhythm as well and I just feel like my body is being controlled and released by the music. It would have to be outside. If we were in Norway [in summer], it would actually be cool that the sun would never go down. It could actually be in the middle of the night and we’d still feel like it was day, which is kinda cool for the brain.

I’ll bring DIY! I’ll bring all the people that like the idea of letting go for a minute, to forget that you’re human and forget how you’re supposed to behave and be. They’d just have to dance like some kind of creature, which is nice to feel sometimes. In a way, we all become such good friends when we dance together, even though we may never meet again; it’s so beautiful, what dance brings out in people. Plus, I’d bring my friend Tom Rowlands from The Chemical Brothers; I love to see him dance because he’s so tall and he looks so uncool when he dances.

In a way, it’s more pure if we don’t drink alcohol I guess, but you could have both. I want people to be more in touch with their brains, as I really like when people are present and not using anything to escape… Maybe I would have beer - I love beer and I’m not ashamed to say it out loud! - and some drinks that really energise you. It’s too spiritual if we don’t serve some beer!

I really love to go to the nearest water and swim and bathe, because it washes off everything. It feels so nice, and then I’ll go to bed with wet hair and salt. Then first thing in the morning, you can also go back to the ocean and swim again because it’s so fresh and it wakes you up. It’s just the best thing.

I feel like a typical afterparty in Norway would be at the water. You’d just drink beer, listen to music and swim in the water - and probably eat kebabs!

Maybe it would be that it happened every once in a while, not just on one night. I think it could be a nice thing to do, especially for really uptight people - we all know them, they’re all around us - and they would need to go there for something a bit weird! Maybe I would have it twice a year and one of the times, it would only be women, dancing and feeling safe, and we could go naked swimming after the show, which is so liberating but easier to do if it’s only us. It’d be a very healing, release-yourself-from-your-body thing to do.

AURORA’s latest album, ‘What Happened To The Heart?’, is out now via Decca.

Tags: Features, AURORA, From The Magazine, June 2025