It was one of those moments that sticks with you long after it’s actually happened.
Johanna and Klara Söderberg were harmonizing through an awe-inspiring version of the Christine McVie-penned Fleetwood Mac classic “Songbird,” accompanied solely by Klara’s softly reassuring work on the acoustic guitar, in front of a sold-out crowd at the Fox Theater in Oakland on Monday (May 15).
The sisters, who are better known as the Swedish country-folk-rock-pop duo First Aid Kit, had prefaced the song by speaking to the audience about how much they loved Fleetwood Mac and how “devastated” they were by McVie’s death late last year at the age of 79.
The 2,800 people in attendance treated the song with reverence, remaining quiet as the sisters continued through the richly emotional and delicate number. Then, at its conclusion, the crowd suddenly erupted, showering First Aid Kit — as well as the memory of McVie and, really, this particular moment in time — with towering applause. And the fans just kept right on going, leaving the musicians with no other choice than to just soak it all in.
Chalk it up as another example of how turnabout can be fair play, given that the crowd was in the process of soaking up 90-minutes of the musical greatness that is First Aid Kit.
The Fox show served as a wonderful kickoff to First Aid Kit’s long-awaited 2023 North American Tour, which also happens to the group’s first headlining trek on this side of the Atlantic since 2005. The band is out on the road supporting its marvelous fifth studio album, “Palomino,” which was released in late 2022.
“This is our fourth time in this incredible venue,” Klara Söderberg told the crowd. “We’re so glad to be back.”
Interestingly, the last time the group played the Fox — in January 2018 — it was also to launch a North American tour. At that time, First Aid Kit was peddling “Ruins,” a work that they soon realized felt rather bleak.
“So we said let’s never make a record like that again,” Joanna Söderberg explained to fans.
In that sense, “Palomino” is indeed a very different kind of record, downright uplifting at points and bursting with sweet nostalgia and warm sentiment. Like “Ruins,” however, it is emotionally charged and full of wonderfully direct songwriting that can certainly bring a tear to the eye.
“I wanna love you like nobody’s ever loved you,” the Söderbergs sang in harmony on the new album’s “The Last One.” “I want you to be the last one I ever love.”
The two most recent First Aid Kit albums were given the lion’s share of the 18-song setlist, with seven hailing from “Palomino” and four coming off “Ruins.” Yet, everything fit together like pieces in one glorious puzzle, as the group also touched upon each of its other studio efforts — 2010’s “The Big Black and the Blue,” 2012’s “The Lion’s Roar” and 2014’s “Stay Gold — and included that one transcendent cover of “Songbird.”
The most obvious selling point of First Aid Kit — a group that is popular enough to fill arenas in its native Sweden — is the harmony vocal work. It’s so readily apparent, and so utterly impressive, that it tends to cast a shadow over other aspects of the group. Yet, the Söderbergs used the Fox show to once again illustrate that they have all the bases covered, from songwriting and musicianship to stage presence and the sheer ability to put on a fully engaging concert.
The show seemed to fly by almost effortlessly as the Söderbergs played guitars and harmonized gracefully through such gems as “Fallen Snow,” “Stay Gold” and “Rebel Heart,” with ample help from a three-piece backing band consisting of keyboardist Freja Drakenberg, drummer Gabriel Runemark and gutiarist Johannes Runemark.
One of the true standout cuts was the new album’s “Wild Horses II,” a delightful travelogue that finds two people debating over which rendition of the Mick Jagger-Keith Richards’ classic “Wild Horses” is best.” One person on the road trip likes the Rolling Stones’ version, while the other prefers the one by Gram Parsons and Flying Burrito Brothers (which was actually released prior to the Stones’ recording).
(Of course, the correct answer to this debate is option No. 3 — the Sundays’ version.)
The music ranged from hushed single-acoustic-guitar-driven numbers, like the first album’s “Ghost Town” to the appropriately named “Lion’s Roar” — which is about as hard-rocking as First Aid Kit gets (except, of course, when it’s doing its awesome cover of Black Sabbath’s “War Pigs”).
The group closed the main set with a beautiful run through “Emmylou” and “Fireworks” then capped off the evening with a three-song encore that concluded with its biggest hit, “My Silver Lining.”
Setlist
- 1. “Palomino”
- 2. “Angel”
- 3. “It’s a Shame”
- 4. “Fallen Snow”
- 5. “Stay Gold”
- 6. “The Last One”
- 7. “Rebel Heart”
- 8. “Lions Roar”
- 9. “Wild Horses II”
- 10. “Songbird”
- 11. “Ghost Town”
- 12. “Hem of Her Dress”
- 13. “A Feeling That Never Came”
- 14. “Emmylou”
- 15. “Fireworks”
Encore
- 16. “Out of My Head”
- 17. “Master Pretender”
- 18. “My Silver Lining”
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