Any tourist from Canterbury, Dover or Rochester, visiting Stockholm and chancing to walk through Medborgarplatsen (Citizen Square) yesterday afternoon would have had a very bizarre experience.
As they entered the square, a black-clad Goth girl would have offered them a black paper flag with the word Kent on it. They would then have walked into a crowd of young people, some dressed as zombies, many crying, gathered around a large black banner bearing the name of their home county. There was even a dog. looking rather down in the mouth, with a Kent banner on his doggy jacket. If they’d asked, they’d have been told: “This is it. The end of Kent. The very last day! Would you like to join our Kent funeral procession?”
Yikes! Time to ring home and find out what in heaven’s name has been happening?
No need to panic Kentish maids and Men of Kent!
As some of the AW know, Kent is the name of an Eskiltuna band who played the final date of their farewell tour yesterday. Founded in 1990, they announced that they were throwing in the towel earlier in the year by means of a spooky YouTube video. The news rapidly went viral and chatboards were hot with theories about why a band at the peak of their popularity were doing this.
There’s definitely a Generation Kent here who have grown up with their music. 11 million albums sold. Not bad for a band who almost always sing in Swedish, but then that’s probably also one of the reasons they are so loved. However much they may like Springsteen, Coldplay, U2 and Half Man Half Half Biscuit, non-English speaking music fans will always want local heroes who sing in their own language about issues a little nearer to home. And Kent did write some fine songs, not least Sverige (Sweden) (see comments).
Music journalists were fascinated by them. Their fans adored them. One summer they played at the Stockholm Olympic Stadium, the largest outdoor venue, and asked all the audience to dress in white, which they dutifully did.
The krona never really dropped for me. I saw them live a couple of times at Roskilde, just to try and find out what all the fuss was about. Probably Denmark was not the perfect setting to explore the phenomenon, as it’s not crawling with Kentheads. I enjoyed the second gig in particular. But stadium rock is not my thing. And unlike wonderfully quirky Swedish artists like Fever Ray, Goat or Jens Lekman, inmy opinion there was nothing truly memorable. I’d be interested to hear Locust’s opinion as I have at least one Finnish pal who is a really big fan. Maybe if they’d called themselves Middlesex, I would have been keener?
In case you are wondering, Kent is a rather common man’s name here which is probably why they chose it. Rather like British band calling themselves Jim, Bert, John or Jules.
Hmm. Bands or artists whose name is a place, A thread just waiting to be started… Devon Sproule, Nile Rodgers, Portishead, Texas, Calexico, Beirut……
Here’s Sverige, a rather fine song by Kent. Someone has translated the lyrics into English in the comments.
Here are the local Kentheads gathered round their flag,
Their procession to the Tele2 Arena made the evening TV news and very photogenic it was too even if the Kentdog probably stayed at home.
Kentheads, Deadheads, Dylanites (?), Zappistas, Headsheads, Dreadheads, Ledheads (or it that Zepheads), Redheads, Fredheads, Directioneers, Beliebers, Sheerios, Swifties, Arianators, Little Monsters …..
I do have a fascination for artists with slightly more extreme fans.
I just discovered that there is a special sub-group of Deadheads called the Wharf Rats who believe in listening to the Dead while sober or not under the influence of any drugs.
Admirable idea, but it’s rather like going to the dentist and not taking any painkillers!
Oops! I think I’d better get Trucking!
I can’t stand Kent. Dull music and the worst singer ever, moaning away with the oddest way of pronouncing Swedish as if it’s his second language, and American English is his first…
Kent, Håkan Hellström, Ulf Lundell; three unbelievably popular Swedish artists that I don’t “get” at all, I’m afraid (there are more, but those three are the biggest mysteries to me).
God I absolutely love the Isola album
Glad you like it, but I lasted 30 seconds when I clicked on your video…his voice sets off an allergic reaction in me, sorry! 🙂
Ha! Oh well. One of my all time favourite albums if all time. Sadly no other Kent album really hits the same spot.
Glad to hear that Sweden’s most popular rock band has made a little impact here on the AW. Tim Tunes also has a soft spot for them.
I’m inclined to agree with your lack of enthusiasm about Kent, Håkan Hellström and Ulf Lundell, Locust. They’ve all got a few good songs, put on a big show and leave me rather indifferent.
All sing in Swedish, are very popular and are stadium rock acts. I suspect that very early in their careers, they all decided they wanted to play football stadiums rather than being content with medium size rock clubs,
Besides not liking the music, these three acts also have in common a certain kind of exessive cult behaviour among their fans, that puts me right off. It’s a bit like Scientology, in many ways.
That Kent concert where all the fans were told to come dressed in white is a classic example of that, @Locust. Kent take themselves so dreadfully seriously. Sense of humour? Not a chance!
And as for all those middle-aged blokes who flock religiously to Ulf Lundell’s concerts.. I saw him at Roskilde in front of a rather sparse crowd at Roskilde. He is used to instant adulation. The Danes perhaps listened to one song and then went somewhere else to have a beer. A rather lovely moment of Schadenfreude.
I have a tiny bit more time for HH who is a showman and entertainer. And anyone who has Freddie Wadling as a guest during one of his stadium extravaganzas can’t be all bad. Not quite as po-faced as the other two.
Yes, I agree @Kaisfatdad; with Håkan I can at least understand what people see (hear) in him, even if it isn’t for me. Although his fans still annoy me! 🙂
The daughters of a friend of mine, who are in their early twenties, drove down to Gothenburg to see Håkan. He tells me that they had a really fab time: an adventure they shared together.
I do like it when people get really enthusiastic about an artist and want to dance, sing along and have one hell of a party. Fat chance of that with the sort of acts DuCool and I go to see: some bearded wierdo playing a twenty minute atonal crumhorn solo while a bloke with a laptop produces peculiar bleeping noises. Perfromed to a crowd of ten men and a rather bored dog.