Photo by Alexis Maindrault for The House List.
Recalling a similar trip to Mercury Lounge to see First Aid Kit (in June of 2010) was next to impossible last night. Back then, the room was about half full and lazily engaged. This time around, the sisters of
First Aid Kit packed the place with a sardines/tin-can dynamic. Sprawling through songs from their album
The Big Black and The Blue as well at the forthcoming
The Lion's Roar, FAK demonstrated both the maturity of their voices and the playfulness on stage that being a bunch of teenage folk sensations tends to illicit.
The new songs held their own, each immensely enjoyable in their own right, although I can't help but anticipate what Mike Mogis has done with them in the studio. In particular, "The Lion's Roar," the title track from their forthcoming Wichita LP, shares many things with its predecessors, the harmonies, the lapsing melancholy, etc. But the highlight of the evening went to a classic, one of the band's biggest tunes, "Ghost Town." To perform "Ghost Town," Klara and Johanna stepped out from behind the mics and sang acoustically into the crowd. Unbeknownst to them (or perhaps they suspected it), everyone in the room was more than eager to join in, for one of those electrifying live music experiences of hearing an entire room in glorious synchronization with the band's emoting.
A funny note: the last time Klara and Johanna visited the Mercury Lounge they made the exact same joke about having nowhere to go after the main set and before the encore. At least this time around, the impenetrable wall of people made it true.
You can experience First Aid Kit for yourself via our session with the band, or feel free to keep your eyes peeled for whatever video Swedish TV was busy capturing last night.
Watch the full video at Baeblemusic.com 