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E-Werk, Cologne, Germany
11th April 2006
The Cardigans & Florian Horwath

It was one of those days when the sky doesn’t know weather it shall rain or not. I arrived quite early at the venue and luckily it stayed dry so it was no problem to stand in the growing queue for a while until the doors opened at seven. Even though it took a while until the venue filled up it seemed to be sold out or at least close to sold out so many people came to see beautiful Nina Persson and her band mates from Sweden.


Florian Horwath

It seemed that this guy was not so well-known to the audience. Some asked me who the support is and I must admit that I did not know him or his work before either. He entered the stage together with some back-up band: David and Jens from the band ‘Brainpool’ from Malmö/Sweden. Florian originally comes from the Austrian province and made his way to Berlin to leave his past behind. In April 2005 he released his debut album ‘We are all Gold’ on Louisville Records and now he got the honour to open for ‘The Cardigans’. http://www.florianhorwath.com/



Music
Florian’s music is very pure using acoustic instruments, harmonica or e-piano besides guitars and drums. Together with his voice he’s creating some kind of campfire romance. The sound of his music is as analogue as possible to keep that romantic mood. His stuff reminds in its grumpiness of ‘The Flaming Lips’ – any piece of music bearing some kind of risk. Some say his music is as big and as small as life itself. Most notably Florian’s chant is predominant, pushed up with some echo. The songs mainly consist of refrain and leave out the strophe while the melodies seem sometimes to be a bit immature. But anyway they have a certain impact. For the live presentation of his music, Florian is supported by two more people on stage – David and Jens – playing guitar and drums while Florian himself is not only singing but also playing different instruments like guitar, harmonica, e-piano, tambourine or some kind of bells.



Performance
The 30 minutes lasting performance was quite reduced and simple: three guys on a quite small area on stage presenting their campfire music without a big show. There’s also not a big light show – only some white steady spots from the front make them visible to the audience which carefully listens to the songs and gave some applause afterwards. The whole show was quite calm and the music spoke for itself. After just two songs Florian introduced its mates as “mum” behind the drums and as “dad” on guitar. Furthermore he apologized for speaking English at a German show. But otherwise his band mates from Sweden would not understand him. With “Johnny” as 7th song the set was finally finished.

Rating
Music 7
Performance 6
Sound 7
Light 5
Total 6 (6.4)




The Cardigans

The Swedish band was formed in the small town of Jönköping/Sweden in 1992. Over the years, their musical style has varied greatly – from Independent over 60ies influenced pop to a more rock based style. The debut album ‘Emmerdale’ was released in 1994 and gave them a solid base in their home country. International break-through came with the second album ‘Life’ in 1995. The Cardigans are probably best known for their hit single ‘Lovefool’ which also appeared on the soundtrack for Shakespeare’s ‘Romeo & Juliet’ with Leonardo di Caprio as Romeo and which hit the number one charts positions in several countries. The sixth album ‘Super Extra Gravity’ was released in May 2005 and finally brought the band to German stages nearly one year later. Band members: Nina Persson – vocals, Peter Svensson – guitar, Bengt Lagerberg – drums, Magnus Sveningsson – bass and Lasse Johansson – keyboard, acoustic guitar. http://www.cardigans.com/



Music
The show was only containing songs from the latest three albums ‘Super Extra Gravity’, ‘Long gone before Daylight’ and ‘Gran Turismo’. The main aspect of the show was of course on the recent album from which only two songs left out of the set list. After the band made their timeless, organic and mature album ‘Long gone before Daylight’ they turned to something wilder and less predictable with the recent album. The songs are shorter and more to the point. The musical performance of the band was excellent. During the whole set unexpected sounds appeared – weather it’s beautiful guitar solos, relentless metal drumming, harsh bass sounds, gentle pianos or elements of neglected parts of rock history. Nina’s voice was perfect too and definitely touched the hearts of the audience. Finally after a perfect set ‘Losing a Friend’ – one of the songs of the recent album – was played as the first encore and could also have been a song from ‘Long gone before Daylight’. The band musically perfectly acted together. Lasse several times changed his guitar against the keyboard for more sound variety in the set. The sound at the venue was quite good too so even the people up at the balcony had the perfect musical experience.



Performance
When the intro set in – sounds of chirping birds and bells – the E-Werk was filled up to the back and also the balcony was quite crowded. After two songs, Nina welcomed the audience. She was also the most impressive person on stage even though she’s quite small. She was wearing tight Jeans and a black corsage which looked very sexy. When she started to smile as sweet as candy she bewitched anyone in front of the stage. The stage design itself was quite reduced – a drum podium in the middle, a white backdrop at the back and some light columns in front of it. The light show worked only with different coloured spots as well as different coloured lights running up and down the mentioned columns. No videos have been showed on the big backdrop; only a big “Super Extra” (hinting to the recent album) was projected to the screen during the second song and in-between the main set and the encores. But anyway the band did not need an extensive produced show – they impressed with their music and voices, with charisma and their appearance as well as their skills.



Nina for example presented great harmonica solos during ‘For what it’s Worth’. The following song ‘Live and learn’ she announced with the words: “We’ll now play something about life – it’s not fun”. During this song Peter took over the backing vocals. Actually Nina was talking a lot to the audience, telling for example that she just realized that the band played at the same venue exactly ten years ago. ‘Erase/Rewind’ in the middle of the set was one of the three songs out of ‘Gran Turismo’ and surely one of the highlights of the show. As the band left the stage after only 70 minutes with a hand-kiss of Nina, it was sure that this couldn’t be everything. So they had to come back for some more songs and finally released a happy audience into the night.



Setlist
01. Drip Drop Teardrop
02. You’re the Storm
03. Little Black Cloud
04. Don’t Blame Your Daughter
05. For What it’s Worth
06. Live and Learn
07. A Good Horse
08. And Then You Kissed Me I&II
09. Paralyzed
10. Erase/Rewind
11. Hanging Around
12. Holy Love
13. I Need Some Fine Wine and You, You Need to Be Nicer
14. Good Morning Joan
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15. Losing a Friend
16. Godspell
17. My Favourite Game
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18. Communication

Rating
Music 9
Performance 8
Sound 8
Light 8
Total 8 (8.4)







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