FIRST AID KIT LIVE AT GLOBEN ANNEXET, OCTOBER 15
Photos by- David Johansson
”We grew up just around the corner from here”. Johanna and Klara Söderberg appear golden on stage; Johanna is wearing gold leather pants and Klara sports a dress with gilded details. The sisters’ latest album Stay Gold is the long-awaited return of the Swedish sister duo since their last album The Lion’s Roar (2012) made them international stars.
It’s still difficult to imagine how worshipped they actually are. Their recognition is most likely concentrated to the US, even though they are known world-wide. Both The Lion’s Roar and Stay Gold were recorded in Omaha, Nebraska with Bright Eyes-producer Mike Mogis as collaborator in his recording studio ARC Studios. They’ve recorded with Jack White from The White Stripes and Bright Eyes front man Conor Oberst guest appeared on TLR. Alas, the sisters popularity is an exponentially increasing curve, which they themselves do not seem to want to slow down.
The crowd at Annexet anxiously gets through the opening set by Jo Rose, a modern country/folk dude with sad lyrics and a crooning voice, while I’m preparing to be released in to ’the pit’–the place between the stage and the crowd where hungry photojournalists are set loose. I’m supposed to take photographs, and act as a photographer this night. The snapping starts, and I come out of it with some pretty decent photographs. Just to paint a picture of how close I am to the sisters–I can actually hear Johanna stomp her wooden shoe covered feet in cadence with the music.
The show is spectacular. I’m not going to argue about that. What strikes me most is how cool and relaxed they both seem, Johanna and Klara. World stars and yet keeping it humble. They start to make jokes about cheese, and it gets clear that First Aid Kit’s done some shows since that day in the woods where they performed Fleet Foxes Tiger Mountain Peasant Song and opened the door to a bigger music career than they could ever dream of.
A couple of days after the show, Johanna and Klara are scheduled to appear on the television show Skavlan. They let it be known they are both lacking in any form of knowledge about music theory and classical training. Fine, they might be exaggerating a bit to get some extra points but it’s still pretty impressive. It’s not the music itself that’s gotten them this far, or how it’s produced and neither where it was recorded–I would say their lyrics and singing ability. That’s what affect me the most, regardless if I’m hearing it on their albums or live.
Their ambitions for working more with the arrangements on their latest installment Stay Gold was a very wise move. Another Bright Eyes fella was brought in, Ben Brodin, who assisted Mogis with the recording process and brought in the extra power neeeded. I’m a guy who likes his strings–the bigger, beautiful and more brooding the better. First Aid Kit’s sound is in constant development, yet their taking it step by step. The arrangements on Stay Gold are a step towards something extraordinary.
From Wolf to Waitress Song, First Aid Kit keeps their audience in a tight but gentle grip. Everything is amazingly clean, professional yet full of passion and belief. As I realize the show is coming to an end, the girls fall into their first big hit, Emmylou, and the chills I still get from that songs is proof enough that there’s something very special about the two sisters from Svedmyra.
