I’ve been a fan of The Cardigans for 10+ years now, I heard about them back in the mid 90’s after Lovefool broke out in the US. I was a member of BMG (remember buying music through mail-in catalogs?) and I soon purchased “First Band On the Moon” and “Life”. For some reason I never got a chance to see The Cardigans perform, even though I’m sure they came by the Boston area plenty of times.
As the years went by the popularity of the band in the states waned. The last time they announced a concert was a couple of years ago, but the Boston date got canceled due to a lack of ticket purchases (my loss, that would have been my first Cardigans concert).
Nina is now playing in her (former) side project A Camp, which I mispronounce as A-Camp (like A-Team). Again I missed them perform in Boston earlier this year because I was traveling to San Francisco, so when they announced their last tour date of 2009 in NYC, I made sure to buy myself a ticket.
The albums themselves are pretty awesome, it’s good to hear Nina’s voice again and I appreciate the complex mixture of melancholy and love that marks much of her writing. Personally out of A Camp’s two albums I actually prefer “Colonia”, their newest release. My favorite tracks are probably “Golden Teeth and Silver Medals” and “Love Has Left the Room”. From their self-titled debut my favorite tracks are “I Can Buy You” and “Song For the Leftovers”.
The concert was billed as an intimate night with the band. I’ve never been to this venue myself but it was pretty cool, right on Bleecker St in the middle of all the action of Greenwich Village. The venue was setup with tables surrounding the stage going about 4 rows deep, beyond that was more room for people who wanted to standup. By the time I go to the venue there was already a line around the block of people waiting to get in. Luckily for me I spotted an empty seat at one of the tables and asked if I could join the people there. Lucky for me, I had my S90 with me and I was right dead center of the stage about 15 feet away.
A Camp is comprised of three people, Nina (vocals and occasional harmonica), Nathan Larson (bass and spousal support) and Nicklas Frisk (guitar). Also they had a full backing band including James Iha on rhythm guitar, remember him? This was pretty cool for me, I’m a huge Smashing Pumpkins fan as well and the two times I went to see them he was not their guitarist (this was recently, after the breakup of the original lineup). There was also a backing band consisting of drums, cello, saxophone and keyboards.
The show itself was great but I felt it was kind of short as well, maybe I was just having too good a time? The band performed songs from both albums and also ended the show with a fantastic cover of Pink Floyd’s “Us and Them”. Nina has an amazing voice, a testament that any Cardigans fan will be quick to confirm. After their last song, the Nina quickly ducked out and left for the green room. The venue dispersed and a few of the backing band stayed behind to mill around with the crowd and help sell some merch. Definitely a good performance.
Finally, this last shot is probably my favorite one from the concert. It’s the same picture as the first one on this post except I cropped the picture to isolate Nathan and Nina. I also changed the picture to grayscale (obviously) and painted out some of the highlights that I wanted to avoid (like the spotlight above Nina’s head). I wish I was as good at lighting to make pictures look this good myself – I guess that’s the next area I need to focus on.
One Trackback
[...] psyched to see her perform. Here are a few select pics but if you want to know more about the show click here to read my article/review on [...]