Fanfarlo/First Aid Kit
The Deaf Institute, Manchester
28/9/09

Fanfarlo and First Aid Kit on record have a familiar sound, but live, common ground drifts away leaving First Aid Kit for dead. The half-hearted affectations of Fanfarlo’s debut, ‘Reservoir’ are lost amid an assault of brass as the band spill across the stage. Yelping, stamping, twisting, dancing; anyone who has heard ‘The Walls Are Coming Down’ and thought the Kissaway Trail did this shit better, it’s time you got out more.

The transformation from pasty faced also-rans to purveyors of sweeping, understated beauty could not be more marked. However, a lukewarm reception to a record that, by this performance could have been so much stronger, shows the gestation period is far from complete. Two young Swedes with a synth and guitar between them were always going to struggle following here. Whilst First Aid Kid are pretty in the right places and produce a set peppered with the type of mistakes that endear rather than enrage, there is definitely something lacking. The pair’s relative youth and annoying Americanisms do little to salvage a white folk set with soul dreams. And it’s a set that is undermined as much by the duo’s music as their unjust billing as tonight’s headline act.

Fanfarlo rock, First Aid Kit charm; but at times like these you need something much more substantial than manners. Understated is all well and good but by definition it’ll never set the world alight.

Will Metcalfe