Preview: Jan Åge Johansen brings Jackie Leven to Kabelvåg for the sixth time

The full-page preview (Våganavisa, 1 August 2007) opens by saying that now and then you should treat yourself to something good, so Jan Åge Johansen is fetching his favourite artist to Kabelvåg. "It just went bang," Johansen says of his first Leven experience; on 26 September the Scottish legend gives his sixth concert at Præstengbrygga. Leven, he says, is one of very few artists who can spellbind an audience with just voice, words and a guitar. A former teacher at the local film school told his students after a Leven concert: "To those of you who were at the concert yesterday: I have nothing more to teach you about communication."

A Leven quotation (source not given): "I don't believe I should keep standing up and saying 'I am Jackie Leven and I am addicted to heroin' when I haven't been for 20 years. I believe in the good company in drinking. But I also spend a lot of time sitting quietly at home not drinking." It is less about drinking alone, he says, than about being alone in public places.

Under the sub-heading "Kritiker-favoritt" the piece says Leven is loved by music critics but overlooked by the broad public; record sales are not impressive, but he has a strong name in the business. The NRK journalist Arne Berg introduced him in a 2005 programme: after four records as frontman of Doll by Doll, things went downhill; with heroin as an aid he tried to medicate his own anxiety, until he had to have it out with himself, and succeeded. On the other side awaited a very strong series of records, self-examining and honest but with a skewed, humorous view of the world and himself. Throughout, Leven asks the basic question: what does it mean to be human, and not least, what does it mean to be a man?

Under "Skriver om mannen" a Dagsavisen interview from the same year is quoted: Leven says he is concerned with men who find life becoming indistinct, old experiences drifting ever further apart so that the personality changes while they try to hold on to who they are. People in his songs often have trouble keeping their sanity; he writes about men who think their inner life is a mystery and relate instead to external mysteries. His songs are full of good drink, and he is known for making his own whisky. Johansen will travel to Scotland on 10 October: "I'm a hardcore fan ... I'm going to see Jackie Leven on home ground. It'll be big!" A box gives a short biography (born 18 June 1950) and a discography with some garbled titles.