Kings Of Convenience

"Se tutte le sue città fossero come Ferrara, l'Italy sarebbe un posto migliore"

Perhaps it was the especially mild weather of gentle Ferrara that put Eirik in such good spirits — we ran into him that afternoon in dad mode, enjoying the easygoing bustle of a Romagna Saturday while bent over a stroller. Ferrara, according to the Norwegian, would be special because cars stop to let bicycles pass… And so it's immediately clear that a Kings Of Convenience concert has begun.

There's a touch of Nordic catechism even in the request not to take photographs during the first part of the show ("It's important to take pictures, but it's also important to be in the moment, in its unfolding," Erlend proclaims in another one of his fuzzy-slogan pronouncements). It's a commandment the audience obeys dutifully: from the warm, devoted silence that immediately settles over the packed square, one could truly draw a precious lesson for the "right crowd" of bored Milan. It all sets the tone for an intimate opening, with the two of them alone, performing their most personal repertoire.

This is where the poetics of delicacy blossom most clearly — the terse, gentle feelings the Bergen duo excel at. The succession of "I Don't Know What I Can Save You From," "Me In You," and "Cayman Islands" offers its virginal purity to the eager appetite of an audience wanting nothing more than to be enchanted by the pair's precise fingerpicking and melodious whisper. The many onlookers in the square, overshadowed by the imposing bulk of the Castello Estense, dutifully answer Erlend's invitation to snap their fingers rather than clap — such a crude gesture! Once again the "party of composure" has won out, and so Kings Of Convenience are left undisturbed in their faithful reproduction of their greatest hits.

It's precisely these standards of "high fidelity" that hint at a certain icy detachment. Is it possible that, after several years at the top of their game, Erlend and Eirik are unable to offer any spark, without giving the impression of being lip-syncing stand-ins for themselves, cardboard cutouts ready to be loaded onto the truck and replanted on the next stage?

Adding to the sense of a "pre-packaged" show is the choice of a setlist seemingly built with the hit parade in mind rather than their own artistic journey. From their latest album, "Declaration Of Dependence", just five tracks will be played (in a two-hour concert), as if we were already in the midst of a self-celebratory anniversary tour; here too, the rhetorical question arises naturally.

Big applause greeted the appearance on stage of trusty violinist Tobias Helt and double bassist Davide Bertolini — the latter already on stage for the opening set by Ophelia Hope (best left undiscussed) and producer of their latest album. The sound inevitably grows fuller, aided by a rousing "Misread": at the same time, the duo's bossa nova, over the long haul, starts to sound repetitive. Hence the virtuosic overload courtesy of Helt, who has no trouble sending the crowd into raptures, confirming the impression of an entertainment show with no great ambitions, in which his flourishes with the bow or in pizzicato look like a stuntman's tumbles at an amusement park.

It's a lesson that a rather unlikeable Erlend happily takes part in — besides his sermons flavored with welfare-state platitudes, he rudely silences an "enthusiastic" British fan, with the indignant tone of someone snatching back the ball he was given for his own birthday party. His nerd-star moves, on full display during "I'd Rather Dance With You," don't fool us, nor does his outfit of faded checks: in him you recognize the classmate who's shy with the boys and friendly with the girls, with a sly little smirk and a barely concealed frustration deep in his eyes…

The concert ends where it began: the two of them alone, "two voices blended in perfection" ("Homesick") — it's in this self-referential summation that the emptiness left by Erlend and Eirik's performance is condensed. An emptiness that becomes deafening in the string of solos and jams tacked onto the cover of "Waiting In Vain," which finally implodes into the call-and-response litany heard at countless concerts: the reggae of "Everything's Gonna Be Alright." The poverty of this "herbal-tea civilization" thus reveals its true face.

(photos by Francesca Baiocchi)

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