Kashmir

support The White Album
author HES date 30/01/14 venue Gimle, Roskilde, DEN

It’s always weird to travel back to your hometown - but I have become accustomed to it. I’m originally from Roskilde and the local venue, Gimle has ever since I moved away become increasingly better at booking great names in spite of its location 30 kilometres outside of the capital. So every now and again, I travel back to explore bands outside the regular perimeter to get a different view on bands outside our little musical bubble in Copenhagen. Tonight Gimle has scored big - Danish rock royalties Kashmir are playing the first gig of their national tour just here and I'm eager to see what the band looks like in the smaller venues where they undoubtedly also have fans. Tonight’s crowd is mixed. Everyone from people in the age group of my parents to youngsters straight out of high school are here tonight. All tickets are sold out and the place is packed from the get go.

All photos courtesy of Peter Troest

The White Album

I arrive a bit late as I mixed tonight’s plans with a birthday dinner for my mom - just for the record not an arrangement you want to make. With a line equal to the size of the Chinese Wall for the wardrobe, I hop right on in fully dressed and procure myself a spot right at the front. The young folk band The White Album including Frederik Vedersø from The Eclectic Moniker is already on stage. All three men have beards of such length that all men in the kingdom should feel a little jealous. The constellation is creative, no person really being the "lead" singer and the men weave in and out of harmonies on top of the warm, fuzzy sound of acoustic guitars.

The mood is melancholic, but not sad. The band constellation of all three men being excellent singers, enables them to create very interesting vocal motifs - even a few blue notes instead of the regular run of the mill backing vocals. A few jokes gets thrown around as some technical difficulties arrive. This will unfortunately paint the evening, but more on that later on. The band, being a bit novice, handle the situation with great finesse and humour - something the bigger names in the game could actually learn from. Overall the short set of 25 minutes is promising.

7

Kashmir

I wasn't a fan when the latest album "E.A.R" came out. Some of the songs I have slowly learned to love - one song I am however never going to love, is the opening song of tonight's set, "Pedestals" - a song mainly consisting of the instrumental noise-intro of 5 minutes. It's of course impressing, that the band is able to hit the same noises every time, however - I still think it's a waste of time, being a Kashmir fan I want the best out of a show and get as many songs for my buck.

Luckily we get to carry on into the beautiful "Melpomene" - however there is something not right about the mixing and the bassy keys dominates the soundscape at one point. Tonight's gig has a rock and roll'ish theme about it. We experience more guitar solos than we would usually get at a Kashmir gig including an almost saw-sounding one on "Purple Heart", a countryish one on "Graceland" and an Americana-inspired one on "No Balance Palace". Unfortunately, the sound is really not with us today, as lead singer Kasper Eistrup's characteristic voice disappears in and out of the mix and the drums sometimes get so powerful they overpower everything else. But as Eistrup receives his acoustic guitar for a quieter song, it is always an omen of good things and "Piece of the Sun" is played to perfection.

"In The Sand" gets an alternative intro for today and the crowd is quietly singing along. The rest of the set is a mixture of older songs we have heard many times like "The Cynic", "Aftermath", "Seraphina" and a lot of new songs, including songs the band has never played live before today like "Foe to Foe" but also "Milk for the Black Hearted". Somewhere in between there the band leaves the stage, to come back for an "encore" - but containing so many songs I wouldn't even call it that. Different from the normal Kashmir set is that the band is more talkative than I have seen them before - Mads Tunebjerg jokingly joining Eistrup's conversations with the audience. What isn't different is that the band delivers a solid, experienced show in spite of a lot of technical malfunctions. As the band finishes the set with "Rocket Brothers" I see couples kissing and hugging post-show as if everyone ingested a magical love potion. It seems Kashmir has some kind of magic effect on people I will continue investigating.

7

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