Camera Obscura and The Essex Green - Malmö October 7

We sat on the bus and suddenly the lights in all windows extinguished simultaneously. An explosion in an electric switchboard temporarily blacked out the electricity in Malmö, and that was the most unexpected thing that happened yesterday.

When I arrived at the venue Kulturbolaget I was told that the concerts would start later because of football. I did not even know that it was a Euro qualifier night. Lagerbäck's football philosophy is very boring and I do not care about our national team. I much rather watch Arsenal, or go to Malmö to attend concerts with Camera Obscura and The Essex Green. I had not seen any of the bands before.
I ran into an acquaintance of mine. He asked me which band I looked forward too the most. I said that I wanted to see both bands although I was a bit afraid that Camera Obscura would be boring. He answered that The Essex Green is the very definition of boring. I did not believe him then.

Camera Obscura entered the scene at 9:45 pm. Kulturbolaget is probably the world's worst place for concerts. Everything is very Brandon Walsh-like at that place. I thought that Camera Obscura would be the same but I was wrong. Very wrong.
Tracy Anne was handsome, beautiful, and very charming. A guy in the audience shouted I love you and I understood him. I myself was in love with Teenager, Lloyd, and wonderful Eighties Fan. Camera Obscura left their setlist on the stage after the show. I was a bit tempted to jump up and grab it, but I noticed that another boy who was a Camera Obscura fan had the same idea so I let him get it. The DJ played The Field Mice - Emma's House at that moment and the boy who was happy to get the setlist lived up as if it was the last song of life. Ever. I actually felt the same. I did not know it then, but Emma's House proved to be the best thing of yesterday.

The Essex Green started playing exactly at 11 pm. There is a clock on one of the poles on the stage at Kulturbolaget. It is probably placed there by the club manager who counts the seconds so that no band play longer than they should. Only at Kulturbolaget. After all, I have attended pop concerts at many venues, but I have not found a clock on the stage visible to the audience at any other concert venue.
The Essex Green opened their live set with the we're not breaking any records yet-song. It started well but the rest of their show really went downhill. A guy behind me constantly shouted Great Late. Damn tiring. Penny and Jack was fine, but The Essex Green disappointed me with their other songs. The Essex Green played their super hit in the end of the show, but it felt very lifeless. I do not understand how a super song like The Late Great Cassiopia could sound so boring live. How can you throw away such a song? Mrs. Bean was beautiful though and probably the best song in the live set. Otherwise, it mostly felt that singer Sasha Bell wanted to go home and she looked more at the setlist than the audience. I was not expecting The Essex Green to be boring, but they were in fact extremely boring. A long time has passed since a band let me down that much at a concert. Yet it somehow felt that The Essex Green were very happy to play at Kulturbolaget in particular and the people at Kulturbolaget were very happy to arrange a concert with The Essex Green.
The audience clapped the band half-heartedly for the encore. People clapped, but the pace of applause never increased. The Essex Green came back on the stage and played Julia, but I felt that I wanted to go home. Kulturbolaget should had changed the order of the bands since Camera Obscura was the only band which deserved encore this evening.


Camera Obscura: Eight out of Ten
The Essex Green: Six out of Ten

The Essex Green - The Late Great Cassiopia

...and The Essex Green will play live after Camera Obscura. It was a wise decision to not pay 425 SEK to hear The Late Great Cassiopia at the Accelerator festival. All conditions are better this time.

What will they say?
What's the world, gonna do anyway, anywaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay?

The lyrics of The Late Great Cassiopia are posted here. What do I really want to hear at the concert? Penny and Jack? Mrs. Bean? They can play whatever they want as long as they play our song.

This weekend is going to be really good. This is a decent "schedule" to follow:
Friday: Cats on Fire + Ultrasport at Blekingska in Lund.
Saturday: Camera Obscura + The Essex Green at Kulturbolaget in Malmö.

Myspace will tear us apart

I do not like Myspace. The people at the Swedish independent record label Service probably felt the same way when they described Myspace's deficits in an eloquent post one week ago.
I can understand that artists may appreciate Myspace as an online community which offers them direct contact to some of their fans. But I do not play in a band, I will not play in a band in the future, and I find Myspace just awful.

I looked through the websites of my favourite bands. The Essex Green are perfect to illustrate my point. The Essex Green gave up their website and moved to Myspace instead. Gone is the The Late Great Cassiopia mp3 link. Gone is the option to view the album covers side by side. Sure, The Essex Green have pimped their Myspace page nicely, but it is not enough. There are too many things that I hate with Myspace:

1. I go to Myspace to get some news updates by my favourite bands (most of them refer to their Myspace pages as they no longer update their websites). Myspace greets me with a song that automatically is played in horrible sound quality. The feeling of the song that simultaneously is played in my media player is ruined. I do not want political propaganda in my mailbox. I do not want a program/script (or whatever it is called) to randomly select a song that is forced upon me. I would like to choose to listen myself, when I feel like it. I should not have to mute my media player just because I want to read some news updates on a band page at Myspace.

2. Myspace allows only four songs on each profile. The mp3 links at the band websites have often ceased to exist and it is no longer possible to listen to the songs the way they should sound. I listened to Katie Goes to Tokyo's Unbelievable at her Myspace page. I felt that the song had potential, but it really sounded dull compared to Until She Breaks. Then I heard Unbelievable on Katie's website and fell in love with the song. It may seem like a case of double standards to complain about the automatic playback at Myspace and then praise the same thing on Katie's website. In the latter case, however, the sound quality is as good as on cd and then you just say thank you and take a bow. Moreover, Katie's website allows me to navigate freely without having the music turned on or off suddenly. That is exemplary.

3. Myspace is ugly. The Essex Green have made an effort to get their page nice, but most bands stick to a standard template. Let us compare the website and the Myspace page of one of my absolute favourite bands, The Arrogants. Their website is true pop music love. The Arrogants allow us to download their first two EPs for free, they put up lyrics, and they upload several exclusive recordings plus cover songs by their friends. Their Myspace page on the other hand seems to exist more as a necessary evil. Admittely, I soften considerably when I hear Jana's voice when she says Nobody's Cool take five though.

4. Everything looks the same. I understand the concept, but it also makes everything aesthetically standardised. The Snow Fairies have really tried to make their Myspace page look fine but it still falls short. The Snow Fairies' website on the other hand feels truly special. To welcome the visitor with a big cover of the album Get Married makes a big difference. The Snow Fairies make one thing to separate themselves from everything that look similar on myspace...

5. Influences and sounds like make it all seem like a questionnaire. The Snow Fairies clearly give the best answers. But all the home, browser, search, invite, movies, email, blog, etc at Myspace disturb me.


Now you may wonder why I even care about Myspace if I hate the site that much. Would it not be better to avoid Myspace? Unfortunately, there are too many bands that have stopped caring about their websites while referring us to Myspace instead. I understand it when a band does not bother to update their website, but I become sad when they spend time on Myspace instead. Take a look at the websites of Belle and Sebastian, Language of Flowers, Looker, Lucky Soul, and Stars. They all show that Myspace can never replace a good band website.

Dream booking!

I thought the chance to hear The Late Great Cassiopia live this year was gone when I dropped my plans to go to the Accelerator festival due to the expensive ticket price. Some people who attended Accelerator were disappointed with The Essex Green and said it was a boring show.

Sometimes you have more luck than you deserve. Kulturbolaget in Malmö has made a dream booking with Camera Obscura and The Essex Green on scene the same night. I am not sure about Camera Obscura though. I suspect that they will be as boring as The Concretes.

Write down October 7 in the calendar. The tickets go on sale tomorrow and it will probably take at least a month before they run out.