This live review is meant as a reminder of an evening in venue Ekko in Utrecht, where two great bands played beautiful music ... in front of barely-an-audience. It is also meant to rightly glorify the musicians involved, and also to pick on Ekko a bit.
Britta Persson was in the Netherlands for three consequent concert dates, of which the last one was Friday, May 13. After Paradiso, Amsterdam and Rotown, Rotterdam, Ekko in Utrecht had the honour of having her on stage. Having only recently discovered her music personally, I bought my ticket to the show well in advance: in all my anxiety I expected such brilliant and cross pop music to perhaps cause sold-out shows and a new big hype.
Worried as I was that the beauty of the music would disappear into the hipness of the crowd and anxiety of the musicians to live up to these massive expectations, my surprise couldn't have been much bigger when I entered an Ekko where at most twenty people seemed to be enjoying the supporting act Last Days Of April, which had just started to play. Of this band I knew even less than of Britta Persson, even though through the years the name had been popping up every now and then - but don't blame me for not having been all too curious in the past; let's be honest, the band's name doesn't necessarily inspire to look up what may be behind it. Yet, the week before the show I looked up some of their video clips on youtube and was positively surprised: the band appeared to carry a very honest and direct sound, with which they create beautiful, mostly compact songs with nice, quite addictive melodic hooks. I got my hands on their album 'Angel Youth' and was very positively surprised.
It should be said that Karl Larsson, guitarist and vocalist of the band, has been the main force of the band since 1996. The other members on stage, of which I can only hope to say rightly that the guitarist / pedal steel player's name is Anders Pettersson, are rather new to the band, but as Anders said after the show, this should be a stable line-up for the future, so that Last Days Of April will remain a nice place to rest your ears in the musical landscape. Their music is very dreamy and has a hopeful if somewhat resignation-like atmosphere...a very ripe melancholy would be a fitting description perhaps? In any case: every song is crafted carefully and executed with lush discipline. The pedal steel playing interweaves beautifully with the other instruments, and sometimes takes the music to another climaxing level. The guitar sound of Karl Larsson is beautiful: one can directly hear the attack of the strings and feel the passion he puts into every chord or lick he plays. A beautiful band!
Then, after some delay, presumably because Ekko has some trouble with fixing broken cables on stage, somewhere after 10 pm Britta Persson - "The Band" - steps on stage. I hear afterwards that this band, except drummer Per Nordmark who has been playing with Britta half his life, is also quite newly formed. Oh, and Johannes Borgström has also already played on at least 'Current Affair Medium Rare'. But let's skip all the findable facts, and over to an objective view of the show. The show is great! Opening with a very cool drum build-up, Britta and band in the first three songs already show to know how to bring a tight yet diverse array of pop songs. Slow and sweet, up-tempo and with humor, or sometimes with a little bit of subtle venom (mainly in the lyrics; I will come back to that). Despite the stupidly empty room, which must have made the band feel a bit dubious, they play great, and sound and look like a unit that has been playing together for a long time already. The vocal harmonies are wonderful and add a lot of strength to the songs. Especially the voice of Anso Lundin, who also plays keys and brings in some percussive energy (energy!), is a golden combination with Britta Persson's voice!
All my fears were ungrounded: the band playing here is all-natural, and I am sure that whenever they will be hyped, they will remain all 100 % "Britta Persson".
After slightly more than forty-five minutes, the band already disappears to re-appear again for the encores. Luckily the few in the audience with me make enough noise to convince them to play some more beauties for us (even 'You Are Not My Boyfriend' gets played, yay!). But then...at approximately one minute past eleven, in the middle of the intro to another encore, Britta puts down her guitar and say "Well, I guess that's it then, no more. Bye!" The band looks as surprised as does the audience. Anso says from behind the keys "Quite an anti-climax, isn't it?". But alas, the band goes off the stage.
A mystery. Indeed. Read on for the resolution.
At the table where CDs are sold, and where I buy the beautiful new 'Gooey' from Last Days Of April and 'Current Affair Medium Rare' from Britta Persson, I hear the adventurous story of Last Days Of April and their ten-hour drive after a reparation to their car, only to play this one show in the Netherlands as support for Britta Persson. Next time they come by, we should be willing to do the same to see their show...and appear in greater numbers! Or we should all go on a roadtrip to a show of theirs in Sweden!
And then the big surprise. The bewilderment! Stupefaction! I ask Anso Lundin what that abrupt ending of the show was all about, and she tells that Ekko just shut down the power at eleven - because the show should have ended at eleven! Really, wh** *** ****!!! Those people at Ekko, the same ones that perhaps delayed the show, pulled the plug like some neurotic, disinterested, etc. things! This has not been the first time that Ekko ( perhaps they are too self-absorbed, just like the discjockey playing crappy superficial music in between the shows; or dominated by the security/doorguard who couldn't care less about the music?) disappointed and tried to spoil an otherwise great evening with much more potential. Which really is a shame, as materially it is a great stage and there are enough friendly people around. Ekko, live up to your potential. Damnit! Next time a great artist passing by and being lured into your place shouldn't be so embarrassed and taken aback! It should be a great evening, one big party, a celebration of high (pop) culture!
Oh, and back home it is delighting to listen to their visually neatly finalized records and read along with the lyrics in the booklet. Britta Persson's lyrics have great twists that I didn't notice when hearing the songs without the lyrics close at hand; one seems to hear to the words more consciously when one reads them along being sung. A great example is the song 'Annoyed To Death', which has beautiful and righteous venom directed towards an ex-friend. Maybe this is what the person Ekko sings after doing the things s/he does:
"But hey, they don't know what it is like
How good it feels to watch you get
Annoyed to death."
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