Live report: David & The Citizens + Laakso @ the Social, London UK 12/11/06
The events leading up to this month's T!T!T! almost threatened to overshadow the gig itself. 'Piegate' was an issue about treating bands from overseas with a good healthy square meal before taking to the stage. English promoters have a reputation overseas for giving bands a raw deal. We want to buck the trend and, after a lot of feet-stamping and shouting, we got our way.
While both of the artist's playing December's T!T!T! cannot lay claim to being new or hyped, they are both seasoned & professional acts who can draw large audiences in capital cities all over Europe. It was actually at a David & The Citizens gig that I first met Jason, almost three years ago to the day.
The love-in and comraderie continued with the re-acquaintance of Pipettes backing band members Jon + Seb Falcone with David & The Citizens. Both camps originally met up at the T!T!T! curated afternoon at the Citizens tent at last summer's Emmaboda festival. The Falcone brothers acted as guest jocks on the night and kept the crowd moving the between the bands, rinsing the likes of Jenny Wilson and Slagsmålsklubben.
The Citizens were the band first on and delved into both their back catalogue as well as playing tracks from the new "Stop the tape! Stop the tape!" album. Magnus made the most of the cramped surroundings by climbing onto a punter's table to really give his brass instrument some welly. The indie-Taliban down the front responded in the requisite style: they went mental.
Laakso's set acted as an end-of-tour party. The band had just come off the road, fresh from supporting Peter Bjorn and John. Singer Markus Krunegård made sure to acknowledge all the Swedish au pairs in the house. Maybe Swedish au pairs aren't that prevalent in London anymore. "But you all work in shoe shops now..." he assessed. Anyway, we won't question his judgement. Laakso played with an unbelievable amount of energy with sweat dripping from Krunegård' brow whilst David Nygård's head threatened to remove itself from his body, such was the intensity of his backing vocals on the likes of "In my blood", or "Drop out" (a new song set to feature on their third album). The band didn't play any of their well-documented Finnish versions of their catalogue. Not sure if the girl who was waving a Finnish flag for the duration of their set was disappointed, but the rest of us certainly weren't.
- Nick Levine