So, I wrote a whole post about this show I saw of a really good Danish singer called Oh Land at Pete's Candy Store with some friends last Monday night, and then I kept postponing posting it until I had the time to upload the photos, and lo and behold my computer crashed today, which totally sucked (goodbye browser tabs!) so I have to rewrite it. Ugh.
Basically, I thought that the lead singer--23 year old Nanna Øland Fabricius--and her two back up singers/bandmates had beautiful voices and really tight harmonies. Oh Land is billed as a cappella experimental electronica, which is a pretty accurate description. While I have to say that none of the songs felt completely finished and weren't tunes that would get stuck in my head for days and days, I loved the calm energy that she had and her voice was a pleasure to listen to. The set began really well, but I found myself getting a little distracted when she moved to songs that didn't use the backing track (with the exception of the one song that she did entirely a cappella, and then repeated it with instrumentals...that was fantastic). All in all, I felt there was some disjointedness in the look of the band, considering the fact that Nanna looked like a model with her simple, elegant updo and black dreess, while the two backup dancers were adorned with turqoise tights, frilly umbrellas (used once very effectively, when they opened and closed them in time with the electronic whooshing beat) and little hats shaped like house that lit up in different colors...it was all very cute, but in conjunction with Nanna's ensemble it seemed a little forced and unnecessary. The music alone would have made it a great show, it didn't need all those bells and whistles. My favorite song of there's is "Alive/Awake."
All in all, though, I really enjoyed myself.
P.S. Quick update on the music: We are getting really really really close to finishing a bunch of our songs and even doing some pseudo mastering ourselves. While this weekend seems like another wash for various reasons, we have made huge strides in the last week with finishing tunes and they are really coming together. I'm hoping we'll be ready to do shows in a couple of months...Can't believe how long it's been, but the most important thing is that we put out great music and not try and finish a song just for the sake of finishing it.
