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| Kashmir. ((c) Christian Hjorth - hjorth-photo.dk) |
When Kashmir announced a month and a bit ago, that they were gonna perform their iconic and defining 1999 album The Good Life in its entirety, I just had to go, and me and a few of my mates were lucky to grab tickets within the four-and-a-half minute span they were on sale. The Good Life hasn't been as instrumental to me personally as its successor Zitilites has, but as I often make clear, I am a huge fan of the album format, and The Good Life is more of a concept and more of a whole than Zitilites is.
Another treat was the fact that many of the tunes on The Good Life haven't been performed live for ages, if ever. That made it quite an easy task for Kashmir to satisfy the rapturous crowd, in concentrated delivery of gems like 'It's OK Now', 'New Year's Eve', 'Mudbath' and 'Gorgeous', tunes, which have been iconized by an entire generation of Danish music enthusiasts. The truest highlight however was the emotional/uplifting pair of 'Lampshade' and 'Graceland', each in their own way core tracks on The Good Life. The former is probably one of the most laconically well-written songs I know of, while the latter really sparked the band's fame.
If I were to point out one bad thing, it was the encore. I had really anticipated something special here, but what we got was in effect tunes that we've all heard live a hundred times before. Sure, 'The Aftermath' and 'Surfing The Warm Industry' are both among my favorite tunes, but really, in a crowd of dedicated fans (remember the sellout time of less than five minutes), who hasn't heard those tunes at least a handful of times live? Kashmir could have done anything, played anything from their catalogue - OK, we've all heard 'Vote 4 Dick Taid' and 'Leather Crane' live by now, but this could have been a massive chance for them to play rarer tunes like 'Rose' or 'Cellophane', or even just 'Melpomene' or 'Petite Machine'... They should have done so, in my opinion.
Coincidentally, I went back to Koncerthuset only three days later, for the Jens Lekman concert orignially scheduled at Jazzhouse. Now, Koncerthuset isn't exactly the most street and urbanely chic place on earth, but, being a multi-million dollar building, it does have some of the best acoustics around.
Lekman, to be honest, is also one of the best performers around. He started off slowly, but what an amiable and gracefully humble artist. Lekman balanced perfectly between humorous yet deep little stories, his fabulous material, which worked fine with just him, his big, fat, ginger drummer and, later in the set, his sampler. Finishing off with a powerful, unplugged version of 'Shirin', Lekman made his way through old and new material, with a good distribution from both Oh You're So Silent Jens, including a Swedish version of the beautiful 'Julie', Night Falls Over Kortedala and the new EP, An Argument With Myself. One could have wished for tunes like 'Maple Leaves', 'A Postcard To Nina' or 'Friday Night At The Drive-In Bingo', but the set was way sweet, and Lekman was too!
Lekman, to be honest, is also one of the best performers around. He started off slowly, but what an amiable and gracefully humble artist. Lekman balanced perfectly between humorous yet deep little stories, his fabulous material, which worked fine with just him, his big, fat, ginger drummer and, later in the set, his sampler. Finishing off with a powerful, unplugged version of 'Shirin', Lekman made his way through old and new material, with a good distribution from both Oh You're So Silent Jens, including a Swedish version of the beautiful 'Julie', Night Falls Over Kortedala and the new EP, An Argument With Myself. One could have wished for tunes like 'Maple Leaves', 'A Postcard To Nina' or 'Friday Night At The Drive-In Bingo', but the set was way sweet, and Lekman was too!
