Concert: Kings of Convenience LIVE in Malaysia

A rainy Sunday evening somehow perfectly fit to be the right moment to listen to Erlend Øye and Eirik Glambek Bøe deep mellow gentle harmonies.

The Norwegian duo met at school when they were16 and started playing music together ever since. They just released their third political driven studio album Declaration of Dependence. We were lucky to be able to catch them live because they rescheduled (canceled) their US tour due to Eirik illness just a couple of weeks ago.

The early first half of the show starts off with their ‘bedroom’ songs and slowly shifted into more groovy songs that drove fans to twist and dance along with Erlend. Two of my favorite songs from the latest album My Ship Isn’t Pretty and 24-25 kicked off the set. 25-24 showed off their purely blessed delicate harmonies that sounded even quieter in my player!

Here is the setlist:
My ship isn't pretty
24-25
Me inside you
I don't know what I can save you from
The girl from back then
Singing softly to me
Second to numb
Mrs. cold
Little kids
Rule my world
Boat behind
Toxic girl
Homesick
Gold in the air of summer
Know how

-encore-
Misread
*New song?* (with Tndrfst)
I'd Rather Dance with you (with Tndrfst)


Kings of Convenience are unlike your typical acoustic musicians that will be just sitting on chairs and strum the guitars, they are actually good in creating all the playful interactions, from asking us to snap fingers, tap the feet and to sing along to Know How, Boat Behind, Ms Cold etc.

They did quite a lot of improvisation to the songs. Thank god they were all nicely done unlike Cat Power’s. The intro chords progression of the Misread took me by total surprise. While the “I'd rather dance with you” sounded more like another remixed version by The Postal Service. That was a good attempt but not an impressive one.

A few days before the show I actually heard the interview on BFM (98.9) with Tndrfst and they mentioned that Erlend actually emailed them and asked them to be the opening band. Why local band but not some other acoustic acts? Clearly it was Erlend’s intention because of his strong influence in electronica tunes and those encore songs that reminded me much of his solo album, Unrest (2003).

Thanks to Diana for the Riot on an empty street CD, one of the earliest records that got me into indie folk years back.

PS: Support our local Malaysian band. They are actually not bad at all! :)
Visit: http://www.myspace.com/tenderfist

Interesting lines by the duo that worth mentioning here:

“…silence plays a very important part in our music, so please for the first half of the show, keep your camera aside” – Erlend

“…I want you all to snap your fingers like this…*snap-snap*…what do you call it here?…(crowds: petik jari!) Yeah… petik jari!” – Erlend

“…we went to watch Zee Avi yesterday night, and we were like, hey~ there’s actually a scene here…unlike Singapore.” – Eirik

“…we need some drums here!!!” – Erlend

“…that was an attempt by Kings of Convenience to sound really loud…” – after Eirik’s guitar faced some technical difficulties.

“…this song was written back in 1998, while I was in London, I was feeling really down at the time…” – Erlend before begin to play Homesick

“..the reason why we don’t want to take picture with people is because there’s this saying that you’ll lose your soul if your picture is being taken…” – Erlend and Eirik

Other non-related crap:
The KoC’s soundman was wearing a tee of The Whitest Boy Alive. Nice one!