Venue:
Birmingham O2 Academy
Date: 03/12/2022
In truth this is a difficult review to write. Firstly the sound was great and Klara and Johanna with their excellent band were in fine form and intent on having a great night. They are something of an enigma – they made their name with tight harmonies and a soft folky Americana vibe with great melodies. However live they kick up something of a storm in parts and this is also noticeable on the most recent album Palomino which this tour is promoting. If their sound is being transformed into a rockier outlook then I have to say the highlights were equally from their acoustic side. Ghost Town, Wild Horses II and of course Emmylou were my personal favourites but the loudest cheer of the night was the two girls alone on stage for an acoustic tribute to Christine McVie with their extraordinary cover of Songbird.
The set proper finished with a magical Fireworks and then a 3 song encore closed with My Silver lining. They entertained us and the night was great but…..
The O2 Academy is in my opinion a shithole that should be condemned – low ceilings, no air conditioning and in my view an over-capacity audience turned a bitterly cold December night outside into an August furnace. I stood next to the staircase that lead to the ladies toilets – 3 ladies fell over as they came down the stairs – two quite shaken and possibly bruised. At least 5 people that i could see (and likely more) fainted and needed treatment. The paramedics were good but that is missing the point.
I will never go to this venue again.
The audience:
An equal split of knobheads, wankers and decent concert goers.
It made me think..
This might have been okay when I was 18 but I am too old for this shit now.
Klara and Johnna if you are reading this I love you but please play the Symphony Hall or Town Hall next time.
I loathe the academy but love the institute. Odd, really, given the broadly similar internals of an old theatre. Academy 3 is ok, the teeny cellar. Neither venue has serviceable bars, mind, awful choice and awful prices.
I quite like First Aid Kit but, likewise, I would never go to see them in a huge venue. Mind you, I’d probably pass even if they were playing an intimate pub or club and choose to put one of their albums on instead. Hell is other people and all that…
Never been to that place, but agree that the Brum Town Hall is a fab venue – memorably, I recall that I saw Steve Earle there with the Del McCoury boys, and it was triumphantly brilliant. One mic. Awesome.
While I’m here, I’ll offer that I saw First Aid Kit on the idiot box and bought Palomino as a consequence – where should I go first for a reach back into their past?
Very typical of Johanna and Klara to choose to do a Christine McVie cover and then do it so very well.
The Kit are the Queens of Cover Versions. So @Vulpes Vulpes, you could do a lot worse than search for Polar Music Prize and watch them perform for the likes of Emmylou Harris and Patti Smith.
Paul Simon seems have been impressed by their version of America. It is superb!
As was Red Dirt Girl. Emmylou was very moved.
Here how it all started back in 2008: First Aid Teens.
And here they are doing Primal Scream’s Movin’ On Up, if only Bobby G could sing like that.
I’m impressed that you’ve posted a clip from På Spåret, @fentonsteve.
It’s the favourite TV show of both DuCool and myself.
Lots of clips to be found as they have been on several times.
They’ve even sung in Swedish!
The Gambler
There’s a lovely comment:
“Here’s what I can’t understand: These two sisters from Sweden, too young to remember Kenny Rogers or Emmylou Harris in their respective heydays, understand on a cellular level the essence of American country music better than most Americans do. How the HELL is that possible? (Not that I’m complaining…please, ladies, keep up the good work.)” (Geoff Lilley)
Here they are on the Skavlan chat show. Overnight they became stars in Sweden and Norway.
Me too. Vart är vi på väg? We do the Duo app and try to beat the contestants. I usually do pretty well on the music questions, if it’s not Swedish language songs.
I first saw it on Youtube, probably because one of one of you lot.
Will do the Youtube trawl for sure. Also want some pre-Palomino CDs to explore!
@SteveT
@Vulpes-Vulpes
Pretty sure I saw Steve Earle and the Dukes there on the Revolution Starts now tour in the mid-naughties and it does indeed suck logs as a venue. Have many happy memories of concerts at Birmingham Town Hall from the early 70s – Beefheart and Mahavishnu I being two excellent examples
@Jaygee I wager that I was at both of those gigs. The Beefheart one that I saw was actually on a Saturday afternoon and Beefheart was so big I thought he was a giant.
CP & TMB were a very tall band, like Suede when Bernard was with them. Not sure they have anything else in common….
CB, I mean. Captain Peacock was very tall but his tenure fronting The Magic Band was short.
@Jaygee they were supported by Foghat who did shit over here but we’re big in the USA.
I also saw – and met – the Good Captain at Lanchester poly in Cov on the same tour.
Got him to do me a signed sketch which i kept inside the sleeve of my copy of Spotlight Kid. God knows where the album and sketch went to.
Are you still heading over to Dublin for Eels at the end of March? Definitely have to meet up for a few pints. Some terrific pubs near the Olympia
The Academy always was a hole when I frequented it, when it was called the Hummingbird, as the 80s turned into the 90s. Slightly odd that O2 want their brand sullied by it.
I saw reformed Buzzcocks, pre-split Psychedelic Furs, Trashcan Sinatras, Goodbye Mr Mackenzie, and many others I forget now, there with my pal who was at Aston. Direct trains from Reading to New St, see.
Was it the Hummingbird, tho? I thought the Hummingbird was the reggae dancehall down opposite Toys R Us. Saw the Levellers there back in the 1990s, making the mistake of going after work. In work gear, making me the uncrustiest person there. They had good record fairs there, latterly, and I remember seeing Chumbawamba there in about 2002, when they were still the 8 piece agit-punks, getting knocked down (again) Academy was the Dome in those days, methinks. Never went.
According to wikipedia, yes. I wasn’t sure, so I looked it up…
Aha, you mix up the O2 Academy, as is, with the Carling Academy, which the Hummingbird became. Closed for yonks, tho talk of it, a year back, reopening as the B’ham Forum. The o2 Academy was the Dome.
Hang on, you’re saying a Wikipedia page is factually incorrect?!
Next you’ll be saying Michael Gove didn’t invent Odour Eaters {heads off to hack Gove’s wiki entry}.
@fentonsteve
As any fule kno, Donovan invented odor eaters,
Do try and keep up
Now that you lot have worked out where in Brum it was that you saw Dumpy’s Rusty Nuts for the sixteenth time back in the day, can you please address my question posed above: of the 5 First Aid Kit albums that precede ‘Palomino’, where should I start to dip my toe into their back catalogue?
I would start with Stay Gold.
Me too, albeit on the grounds that it is the only one I have heard.
The Lion’s Roar would be my choice starting advice
Thanks folks – I will start there.
*shuffles over to Discogs*
Your description of the venue could just as easily be the one in Oxford. My last – and final – visit was to see The Darkness. If the number attending were legal, I’ve no idea how a license can be safe with such over crowding. No air con, knee deep in piss artists with no space to get clear of them.
Just stumbled over this @Vulpes Vulpes.
A beautiful tribute to the late, great Marie Fredriksson by FAK and Maja Francis.