Karin Park, Röyksopp @ Ekkofestival
USF Verftet, Bergen, Norway 24th-26th Sept 2009
Day Two: Friday 25th Sept
I stumble in a bit late on Ekko’s second day to find Karin Park already underway. A Swede who has lived in Bergen the past ten years, if Park can make headway in the UK she would be doing it at the right time, as she shares a good splash of musical DNA with some of the names of the moment who’ve seen to it that 2009 has been unofficially named ‘year of the electro-pop girl’ (or something similar but more snappy…) – La Roux, Little Boots et al.
In truth it’s the conflict between the pop sound and the insular stage presence that detracts from the impact of Park’s music. There are some cracking tracks on her debut album Ashes To Gold – not least flagship single “Can’t Stop Now”, which is belted out penultimately here – but whilst Park shares a haircut and dress-sense (both questionable) with electro-pop queen Robyn, live she lacks the latter’s warmth, passion and flamboyance. She pondered on this very site on how to look cool with a keytar, but maybe attempting to achieve this was her undoing: flailing and gurning, Robyn throws cool to the wind. That said Park’s dark(-ish) synth-pop, cooked up onstage by just her and her instrument-swapping brother, and a voice with the accented edge of her namesake Karin Dreijer-Andersson, is both catchy and a perfect warm-up for the day’s – and the festival’s – big headliners, Röyksopp.
The last (and indeed first) time I saw Röyksopp was at a huge concert in London’s Royal Festival Hall, and so it feels fitting and exciting that the second time should find them here – in a tiny venue back home, the first concert back in Bergen for seven years. It’s a chance to experience both sides of Norway’s biggest band: the international stars, with glitzy guests and industry types in thousands of plush seats in the city of corporate success; and the local boys, back in the city where the whole Röyksopp story began, urged on by friends and native well-wishers.
That first time, in spite of some initial scepticism on my part, the duo were a revelation. This time they were just good, despite not really doing anything differently. Or rather, perhaps because of not doing anything differently. It’s my fault really, being all romantic, but I couldn’t help hoping that this homecoming concert would be, I dunno, a really special event – maybe even intimate… Of course Røyksopp don’t really do intimate, at least not on their last (and in my opinion pretty awesome) album Junior, and so it’s basically the same show I saw before. Which means Svein Berge intoning the chorus to “Happy Up Here” with his head inside a massive plastic bowl, Robyn (whose apparent willingness to go anywhere in the world to sing one track is increasingly admirable) leaping on to brilliantly flail and gurn her way through “The Girl And The Robot”, and an almost ever-present Anneli Drecker to paint all of the lesser songs with her rather formulaic nineties-throwback vocals.
The show is hampered by various hurdles: the crowd has been swelled by loud and drunken day-ticket holders keen for a raucous night out and baying for the hits. The sound-system doesn’t really do them justice and means that some of the less recognisable songs wash together, and a live violinist is totally lost in the mix. And Junior highlight “Tricky Tricky” as sung by Drecker strutting in a creepy owl mask loses the punchy thrill of hearing the humorous side of Karin Dreijer-Andersson that hasn’t really been seen since The Knife’s Deep Cuts. But the high-points are peerless, and it does feel a little bit special to hear the iconic bleeps of “Eple” echo around this little fish factory in Röyksopp’s adopted home town. Basking in genuine pleasure the duo return after an epic run through of “Only This Moment” to play things out with both “Poor Leno” (sadly sans Bergen-native Erlend Øye), and lastly the unreleased “Fat Burner”, both Drecker and Robyn on stage at the finish, dancing and singing the fish-smoky roof off.
Words: Dan Roberts
Photos: Henrik Svanevik
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