First Aid Kit at Islington Assembly Hall

First Aid Kit
Jo Rose
Islington Assembly Hall, 15 May 2014

With their third album, Stay Gold, due in less than a month it was a truly lovely surprise when First Aid Kit announced a smallish gig at the Islington Assembly Hall. Not surprisingly, given they are big enough to announce a date at the Royal Albert Hall in September since, it sold out pretty much straight away but lucky for me I managed to get one of the coveted tickets for the show. I had never been to Islington Assembly Hall before but it's actually one of the nicer venues I've been to in a while, just up the road from my current favourite, the Union Chapel, With a small standing area in front of the stage and a seated balcony, it's probably between the size of the much missed Astoria and the Scala in King's Cross, but the look of Bush Hall. Unlike some of the recent venues I've visited for the first time recently, this is one of the few that I'm keen to return to.

First up was a singer-songwriter from Manchester by the name of Jo Rose.When he walked on stage with his heavy fringed hair and baby face, I thought he was going to sound like Jake Bugg or one of those generic British new folk artists, but instead he began to sing and sounded like a mournful Ryan Adams or A.A. Bondy. Apparently he's making his debut album at the moment, which should be worth a listen as he's certainly a decent songwriter, but as a live performer he rarely gets past first gear, which much of the material sounding the same. The highlight of his performance came when he invited Klara, from First Aid Kit (who he says also appears on his forthcoming record), to sing a rather lovely version of the Gram Parsons/Emmylou Harris classic A Song For You. I get the feeling there may be more between them than a love of old country tunes.

The stage is set for First Aid Kit's arrival, with a glittery gold backdrop which it turns out not only represents the title of the new album but also matches the girls' outfits: Johanna in a sequined gold top, black witchy hat and decorative black jacket complete with gold embroidery, while Klara wears a gold sequined bolero over a simple black chiffon dress: both of them glittering away under the lights along with their backdrop. Needless to say, as usual they look stylish, cool and beautiful, it's hard to believe that these glamorous young women not long ago were awkward jumper-wearing teenagers singing Fleet Foxes covers.

They begin the show with a new track called Shattered And Hollow, a beautiful, slow building country tune that recalls Neko Case at her best (in fact if they haven't been listening to Neko Case all through making the new record I will be incredibly surprised). The new album in fact gets a great showcase tonight, which is pretty thrilling to hear these songs before they are finally given to the world once and for all.
Another new track, Waitress Song, is a lovely strumming affair which begins with Klara telling us "I could move to a small town and become a waitress, say my name was Stacy and I was figuring things out..." Soon the drums and pedal steel come in and it feels like those classic, sad storyteller songs from the best of the dusty Americana records. Master Pretender is a lovely folky tale with beautiful guitar picking courtesy of Klara, while the title track of Stay Gold is a yearning, atmospheric country noir. There's also another track that I fail to catch the name of, but that changes the pace again and is a fun, face-paced, barn-storming stomp. On top of this there's also the two new singles, Cedar Lane, a sweet 60s sounding song full of lovely harmonies and, even better, the grooving, dusty shuffle of My Silver Lining, which reminds me of Ryan Adams on one of his best albums, Cold Roses.

In between proving that the new album is one to get very excited about, they also treated us to a few old favourites too, most notably the fantastic drum-heavy, tribal croon of Wolf; a really rocking version of The Lion's Roar which saw both girls swinging their long locks around like witchy psychedelic headbangers and a very nice acoustic cover of the Simon & Garfunkel track, America, which they also played the last time I saw them.

Two of the best moments of the night though came with a couple of audience singalongs. First, the Soderberg sisters abandoned their microphones and Klara unplugged her guitar and they stood at the end of the stage to sing Ghost Town, encouraging the willing audience to join in and once again it sounded glorious. The second time the audience participation came even more naturally, as they returned for an encore of probably their more well-known and beloved songs (at this point anyway), their owe to Ms Harris herself, Emmylou. They had barely begun to sing it when the crowd, slowly at first, began to become audible singing along and by the end, the girls stopped singing so they could listen to everyone singing, like the perfect First Aid Kit choir. Klara even joked that she wanted to bring everyone along on tour with them but, with songs like they sing and shows full of joy like these, I have no doubt many lucky people will be happily singing along with them wherever they go.