First Aid Kit by Joanna Cheung.
When I finish my interview with The Tiny in the dressing room of the Union Chapel I trot over to say hi to the First Aid Kit girls. Johanna (the taller older one) is wearing a splendid vintage dress and we persuade Klara (shorter, dark hair) to also don the dress she will be wearing for the concert later that night. Lounging against the heavy chapel curtains they are happy to ham it up for my photos like a creepy pair of sisters straight out of The Shining. Last year First Aid Kit played on the Climate Camp stage at Glastonbury for me, but so far this year they have only been confirmed to play at the Green Man Festival. Apparently promotors are being cautious so far in their bookings and the girls seem a little concerned that they won’t be playing elsewhere this summer.
First Aid Kit. Photography by Amelia Gregory.
When I arrive back at the Union Chapel during the interval later that evening I slip into a prime seat on the rounded balcony overlooking the stage. This enormous hall dwarves the young sisters (Johanna is currently 19, Klara just 16) when they walk out in their fabulous vintage 70s dresses, bright shades of royal blue and orange red under the stage lights. “Wow! Did you guys get the right date? Did you really come to see us?” asks Klara in mock amazement, to which someone in the far reaches of the balcony responds “You’re fab.” A momentary cloud falls over Klara’s young face until someone points out that this does in fact mean that they’re good. Johanna mutters something intended for the sound engineer. “Don’t worry if you can’t understand her, she’s speaking Swedish,” explains Klara, who throughout the evening dominates all between-song banter, as she does the vocals – at one point berating Johanna for remaining silent whilst she tunes her acoustic guitar. It’s easy to forget that English is not their first language, so easily do they inhabit their sophisticated lyrics.
First Aid Kit by Joanna Cheung.
With a cheeky “This song is for those of you who put their hands up when The Tiny asked who here is married!” Klara launches into You’re Not Coming Home Tonight with the mature assuredness that is their hallmark – compounded by the knowledge that they come from a particularly stable family background with doting parents who travel everywhere on tour with them. Throughout the concert I cannot help but notice the gobsmacked expression of the drummer placed in between them. “As you may have noticed there is a man behind us,” points out Klara, “he’s been with us since August.” He looks as if he cannot believe his luck in supporting such outstanding musicians, who at a wild guess may be two decades his junior.
First Aid Kit first came to the attention of the music-loving public with their cover of Fleet Foxes Tiger Mountain Peasant Song, which was uploaded onto youtube and has since become something of a phenomenon with well over a million views (four times that of the original song). Filmed from one camera angle in a forest setting it shows Johanna and Klara harmonising together with only a guitar, beautiful in its simplicity. Klara wonders who in the audience found them this way and at least half raise their hands. They then very nearly raise the imperilled roof of the Union Chapel (which is suffering for its grandiose shell) with an apt rendition of the song.
At one point Klara tests for an echo in the vast space before she and Johanna step right away from their microphones to do a sublime acoustic rendition of Ghost Town before moving back onto a rollicking number. When Klara asks the audience “Has anything bad happened to you today? Are you sure? What about the people in the balcony? Are you all okay? Can I do anything for you?” this elicits little more than nervous laughter before someone unkindly says “You can keep on singing.” Quick as anything Klara responds “yeah, why not? I wasn’t really doing anything else tonight.” As they return to the stage for their first encore Klara explains. “I only came back for my water bottle… I should be a stand up comedian.” Her asides may fall a little flat but she copes admirably when no one laughs, launching straight into a cover of Gram Parsons Still Feeling Blue, “even though I’m not now. I’m feeling great.” They are as at home playing music that was made well before they were born – “You have to listen to him or I’ll haunt you in your sleep!” – as they are covering current hipsters.
After another standing ovation they return once more to someone yelling “We like you a lot!” whereupon they decide to sing another acoustic version of In the Morning from the floor in front of the stage, managing somehow to create an odd intimacy in such a cavernous venue. Despite their gamine awkwardness nothing can detract from the brilliant intensity of this First Aid Kit concert. Johanna and Klara really don’t need to panic about getting offers from festivals this summer. Glastonbury here they come.
Tags:
acoustic, First Aid Kit, Fleet Foxes, folk, glastonbury, Gram Parsons, green man festival, Joanna Cheung, The Tiny, union chapel
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