the life aquatic

At 5.5 million people, Denmark rests comfortably between Kyrgyzstan and Sierra Leone on the UN list of most populous countries. Yet this nation has established a name for itself on the world stage with breakfast pastries, extraordinarily large dogs and, thanks to their 1997 smash hit "Barbie Girl," Aqua. The group disbanded in 2001, but announced plans to reunite and play 3 scandinavian dates this year. One of these was at The Voice '09, an annual music festival at Tivoli (Copenhagen's amusement park) hosted by the eponymous Danish Top 40 music station. Since the last time I'd heard Barbie Girl was at the bowling alley for my 11th birthday party, attendance was mandatory.

We tried to pregame for the evening's lineup by enjoying some of the park's rides but, after nearly losing our ice cream cones on the Vomitron 4000 (a hilarious but gut-wrenching bastardization of gravity), we waded through the throng of tweens and took our places before the stage. We would stand there, basking in an odiferous haze of body odor, cheap perfume, and hair gel, for the next 7 hours.

After a hodgepodge of Danish acts (Outlandish, Medina, Joey Moe, etc.) co-headliner David Guetta delivered a respectable DJ set, but then the unthinkable happened. Aqua did not play Barbie Girl. They showed off some new material and stumbled through a couple lesser known songs before unceremoniously leaving to a sea of disappointed faces. I felt like a kicked puppy. That's like going to Augusta to watch Tiger Woods play and having him show up with a basketball. My dream of the life aquatic was drowned.