366 words on Live
As a fun excursion ‘between the years’ we went to see Katrine Ottosen (Denmark) and Lena Malmborg (Sweden)) in Hannover.
Katrine Ottosen played first and it was literally just her and a bunch of keyboards on stage. She used one or two of them at a time and sang along. In the beginning the music seemed a bit feeble and the singer a bit nervous but that improved and some beautiful moments came along later on. Yet, – despite being a definite non-fan of overdone production – I kept thinking that perhaps having a bit of bass or percussion along would make the music more powerful.
Katrine kept making a bit of a joke of her upcoming but not yet completely recorded EP and I wonder whether we’ll perhaps see some of those extra instruments in there when she can record more tracks together. In fact, there was even a copy of the EP to win for recognising a cover version of a song she player. Unfortunately it was a Britney Spears song so I didn’t have a chance… and it wasn’t as good as her own songs anyway. Her own songs were more in the style of Feist, for example, whose CD they played before the gig started. Might be interesting to keep an eye on what she does in the future.
Lena Malmborg then came on after a short break. She came with a band and played music which sounded somewhat American / countryish. Too American / countryish for me to like it anyway. The fact that – unlike the rest of her band – Lena didn’t really seem to enjoy singing and brought all the flair of a businesswoman to the stage probably didn’t help either.
Shortly after the gig they played a version of Arcade Fire’s Ocean of Noise which I didn’t recognise. I thought it could be by a band like Calexico and a trip to Google revealed that such a version indeed exists (as does Norah Jones cover version). But it doesn’t sound like what I heard back there. So I still wonder what they played or whether the time of day and drinks just distorted things a little.