Location: Katedrala / Kino Šiška / Ljubljana
Concert date: February 14, 2013
Attendance: 550
Ticket price: 18 EUR presale, (students/seniors) 14.40 EUR, 23 EUR on the day of the show
Before a The Raveonettes show, you have to think twice about whether to go with or without your better half. Even more so on Valentine’s Day. Yes, this year’s holiday for lovers (and (increasingly) shopkeepers, ahem) was marked by Ljubljana’s Kino Šiška with a concert by the Danish duo, famous for melancholic melodies, resignation and chronicling the dark side of love. Those labels make more sense once you learn that songwriter, guitarist and vocalist Sune Rose Wagner suffers from clinical depression. The other half of the pair is Sharin Foo, a beauty of mysterious character, warm presence and a fragile, angelic voice.
Though various music outlets often dub them the Bonnie and Clyde of indie rock, after that notorious, destructive gangster couple of the 1930s, with The Raveonettes the notion of ”destruction” would be better served by adding the prefix ”self-”. The self-destructiveness shows in the recurring mantra of describing tragic, bitter and unhappy feelings, moments and stories. Their songs are full of pain, disappointment, suicidal leanings, ”bittersweet” nostalgia, and losing yourself in the grayness of the day and in your own face / expression. Songs that suit a quiet, rainy day. These feelings are even more pronounced on their latest albums, including Observator, which they’re touring. The influences on this latest creative period are well known: Velvet Underground, Sonic Youth, The Smiths…or in other words: melodic riffs, guitar fuzz, distortion, darker shoegaze, but still sticking to 3-minute little songs. That hasn’t changed since the band’s early days. Those were shaped far more by musicians of the fifties and sixties, e.g. Buddy Holly (the duo took their name from one of his songs), so-called surf rock, garage rock pioneers and noise rockers a la Jesus and The Mary Chain.
And it was with that latest creative phase that the show in a nicely packed Katedrala kicked off. By the time we got to the atmospheric jangle of ”Observations”, which came up ninth, we’d had four songs from the new record and five slightly older ones that fit wonderfully into this monolithic (some would say (at times) monotonous) ”gloomy” opening block. The show started right on the announced time (10:15 PM – ended 11:30 PM) with the sonic ”Hallucinations”. That cosmic wall of sound, or rather feedback, was followed in third place by ”Blush”, which you could also call a variation on the opener. In between, a hit from the latest record slipped in, the Smiths-tinged ”She Owns The Street”, which woke up the audience for the first time that night and got a slightly livelier, louder response. Until then it had been pretty lukewarm, but up on stage the musicians (the duo was joined by a drummer) didn’t exactly shine at communication either. Not that we expected them to. That’s just part of The Raveonettes’ aesthetic. On the way to the excellent ”The Enemy” (a nostalgic recollection of lost love), we got the morbid lullaby ”Dead Sound” and the relaxing little ballad ”Lust” (don’t let all the seemingly contradictory labels throw you – ambivalence is an integral part of some depressive disorders).
The second half of the show was opened and defined by their most famous hit, ”Love In A Trashcan”. A dirty, distorted riff lifted everyone gathered in Katedrala and hinted at which direction the show was heading. Dynamics, fever, movement. After the 60s fusion of garage, surf and ”mod” in ”That Great Love Of Sound”, it was time for the acoustic part of the show (two songs), and the drummer left the stage for a few minutes. Only the evening’s protagonists remained: on the right side of the stage the self-absorbed Wagner, on the left the charming but shy Foo. First they played a hit from the latest album, the Velvet Underground-esque ”Young and Cold”, and then the suicidal ”Love Can Destroy Everything” (before it, Wagner said the following telling words, which resonated especially strongly on this symbolic day: ”…here is a lot of suicide lovers”). Yep, we can only agree with his thoughts on love’s destructive force. After the acoustic interlude, they wrapped up the main set at high dynamic revs with ”Attack Of The Ghost Riders” and ”My Tornado”, returning to the mood that marked the start of the second half. For the encore they served up the old ”Bowels Of The Beast” and the oldest one, ”Aly, Walk With Me”, which was the first song of the night (and the last) that really blew me off my cemented spot and, with its bombastic guitar fuzz, whipped up an unbelievable sonic blast. Catharsis in one gulp. A song worth waiting for until the very end! As modestly as they’d shuffled onto the stage, they took their leave of it. Modest, polished and reserved. But clearly pleased with how it all played out. A smile even showed up on the face of the grumpy Wagner. Thanks, The Raveonettes, and come back soon.
Warming up the crowd as the opener was Zagreb-based singer-songwriter Nina Romić, this time backed by a five-piece band of excellent musicians. Romić stands out for an interesting blend of folk, rock and Croatian ethno tradition, which showed especially in her best-known song Neoni, wonderfully seasoned with the sophisticated sound of an accordion. Her gorgeous, soulful voice, all her own, really came into its own in the last song of the set (when she was up there completely alone, bare and vulnerable), which she dedicated to everyone gathered to celebrate Valentine’s Day. A set just as it should be; the future is bright.
A show that was pretty restrained at first turned into a proper mini explosion of heart and mind by the end. The ubiquitous face of Western-world melancholy today can be transformed into musical form in seriously interesting ways. The duo The Raveonettes prove it with most of their work. Although after the successful first EP ”Whip It On” and the record ”Chain Gang of Love” they strayed for a couple of years from the chart of quality and excitement, with their latest they prove that sometimes you have to wait quite a while, right until the end, to see the rounded whole, the result as a whole. That proved true at the Ljubljana show too. The dense, hypnotic-melancholic opening stretch entranced the crowd and left them dreaming, while the finale woke them up, set them free and, with any luck, gave them a real cleansing. Even such monolithic bands can conjure up a rainbow of shades and an explosion in the heart. How does the saying go: music works miracles?! Joy, joy, joy! Clyde, good luck to you!
Setlist
THE RAVEONETTES:
1.) Hallucinations
2.) She Owns The Street
3.) Blush
4.) Dead Sound
5.) Lust
6.) Curse The Night
7.) Gone Forever
8.) The Enemy
9.) Observations
10.) Love in a Trashcan
11.) That Great Love Sound
12.) Young and Cold
13.) Love Can Destroy Everything
14.) Attack Of The Ghost Riders
15.) My Tornado
encore:
16.) Bowels Of The Beast
17.) Aly, Walk With Me
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