Returning to Melbourne for the second time in nine months, Swedish sister duo First Aid Kit played their largest Melbournian headline show on Friday night.
Supporting the duo was Melbourne band Luluc, who opened the night with ‘Winter is Passing’ from their sophomore album, Passerby (which was co-produced by The National’s Aaron Dessner). Their set was made up of simplistic melodies and harmonies, which was nice at the beginning but lead singer Zoe Randall’s seemingly limited vocal range made it slightly monotonous after a few songs.
‘Reverie on Norfolk Street’ was a welcomed upbeat tune with nice harmonies and electric guitar added by Steve Hassett who added a bit of friendly banter in between songs.
“I just saw my Dad in the audience, so we’re going to do his favourite song”, Hassett said, introducing ‘Old Hat’ – a nice sentiment considering the band spend half of their time living in New York.
The band’s penultimate song was the highlight, with both members now on electric guitar for the intense ‘Tangled Heart’. Ending with ‘Star’ the duo were farewelled by a warm response, but it was obvious that people were restless towards the end.
Ethereal sounds and silhouettes saw the stage become the focus once again when First Aid Kit appeared half an hour later. With a spotlight focusing solely on Klara Söderberg for the beginning of ‘The Lion’s Roar’, the stage eventually lit up, revealing younger sister, Johanna (who flipped her hair so much during the opener that her golden cape flipped completely around).
“Good evening” welcomed Klara after the beautifully harmonized ‘Stay Gold’.
“Melbourne is one of the best cities, this is a magical place and it’s Friday! So let’s party!” Said Johanna, before the two launched into an impromptu rendition of Rebecca Black’s ‘Friday’.
“We have many party anthems, here’s one of about a depressed middle aged woman who hates her life. It’s called ‘Blue’’ joked Johanna.
Despite the depressing lyrics, the melody and harmonies in ‘Blue’ had the crowd tapping their feet. This continued during ‘King of the World’ – a fan favourite, which was written and performed with Connor Oberst for their sophomore album. With Oberst also in town for Golden Plains it was slightly disappointing that he did not appear for the song.
The Söderberg sisters have the innate ability to transition their voices from angelic to fearsomely strong in the same song (this was particularly evident during Klara’s solo in ‘Shattered and Hollow’) as well as the ability to make a an audience both laugh and cry.
Many audience members were obviously touched when the duo chose to sing the goose bump-inducing ‘Ghost Town’ without the use of microphones. First Aid Kit’s beautiful voices and heartbreaking lyrics were on full display and when the audience began to whisper along it was clear that the sisters have a beautiful influence over people’s emotions.
After returning to microphones for ‘My Silver Lining’, the sisters introduced their cover of Jack White’s ‘Love Interruption’ (originally performed for triple j’s Like A Version segment) revealing that they originally wanted to cover Sia’s “Chandelier”. Klara then stunned the audience, attempting the song’s chorus – clearly able to reach the high notes she claimed they would not have been able to achieve for the cover.
“Thanks triple j for putting pressure on us to pick a song because we’ve been playing this live ever since” said Johanna before the band launched into the loudest and most intense track for the night – the performance resulting in everyone in the theatre falling into a complete trance.
Ending the set with ‘Wolf’, the sisters left drummer, Scott Simpson and guitarist, Melvin Duffy to finish the set, with a drum solo in complete darkness proving very impressive. It was clear that neither First Aid Kit nor their audience had enough, with the band returning shortly after for ‘Something Good’.
Ending the night with ‘Emmylou’ – homage to the duo’s Americana influences, the room was filled by a sweet sing-along from the audience and finally a standing ovation. First Aid Kit left the stage for the last time after firmly reminding the audience why they are hailed as one of the most talented and moving folk duos currently on the scene.
Check out the full gallery from the show here.
