Royksopps Night Out in Birmingham
Another gig at the Academy, last night the Norwegian dance duo, Royksopp, once billed as “one of the world’s most celebrated and innovative electronic acts”, were in town and boy was it a great gig, my ears were ringing from the first track, they are still ringing now, we were situated right at the front just left of centre stage. Initially I hadn’t liked Royksopp’s new album “The Understanding”, I certainly do now and we were treated to an amazingly energetic show. this gig was always gonna be good.
Support were a little crazy and that’s pretty much all I have to say on that one, some members of the crowd loved him, camera phones were clicking all over the place. It was a nice touch that fellow Royksopp collaborator, Erlend Oye, had his dance album played as the roadies preped the stage for the main act, in fact it was even stranger to note that I had met Erlend while he was a true King of Convenience, from acoustic chillout to trance and blip-hop chillout and dance, my music tastes are quite puzzling at times.
A much older and mature Torbjørn Brundtland and Svein Berge came out dressed in red shirts with black ties, very Kraftwerk-esque. With a scrolling LED display informing us what track was being performed (a must for every band) and a hugely scalled up inflated “TDK90″ MC, was lit up at various points.
One of the many highlights for myself as you may be able to tell from the above photo was that I was inline with Anneli Drecker and as such took many a chance to sing with her as she added backing vocals to “Circuit Breaker” and “Only This Moment”, backing vocals that I admit to singing along with in the car on the way to and from work. Her eyes are amazing although I don’t think she is on the new album, will have to look into it.
I managed to get a smile too, added bonus. Anneli is pictured here adding her spooky twist to “What Else Is There” an anthem that I was listening to around the time of the London Bombings, the lyrics and style of the track matching perfectly with the events of the time. Not to focus too much on Anneli, but she was certainly more prominent this time than last, they had even reworked “Sparks” which was certainly her track from the debut album and they had presented it as a track that you could dance to. There was no bar culture about this gig as there was last time, we left the chillout sound at the Vodka bar back in 2002. Melody AM will have a special place in my memories forever more, this version of Royksopp was much different.
Other tracks such as “Alpha Male” being far more energetic than I thought they would be, the gig had a real Ibiza feeling to it. Not to forget their old stuff, “Poor Leno” was amazing as was “Remind Me”, shame Erlend wasn’t there as ever and not forgeting “Eple”. The reworking of “Sparks” was totally amazing. The crowd were well up it, which is rare in these parts, the show didn’t disapoint at any point, we got 2 encores and the guys just loved doing what they were doing and loved the crowd. There was no need for the screen they had last time because we were too busy dancing (if you can call it that). The LED scrolling messages gave us triva about band members, where they came from and it also informed us that Norway is snowy even at night, I’d like to go to Norway.
Bloody fantastic is what it was, always nice to break the routine to attend such a venue with such quality placed before us.
As you can see here, I await to se Sigur Ros, another innovative electronic act, this time from Iceland. The gigs are coming thick and fast now, noting a dwindling supply of gigs me and Rich are booked in to see Ben Folds just before my birthday, that music artist being very different from Royksopp, from Texas , from Longview, we certainly have developed a wide taste of music bewteen us and that can only be a good thing.
Those photos did come out well didn’t they? An awesome night. I thought the reworking of Sparks was excellent. I wonder if it’s available somewhere out there? highlights have to be Poor Leno and Alpha Male though.