This article originally appears on Boston Band Crush ).
Success is sometimes a curse. For years, I’ve been touting the amazing voice of Nina Persson, best known as frontwoman and crooness (if you’ll pardon me making up a word) for The Cardigans. The standard response is some negative statement about that song with the “Love Me Love Me” refrain. So, I painstakingly explain that, not only is that song great if you actually pay attention to the lyrics and the instrumentation, but the band has an extremely high hit rate and a solid number of records in their catalog. Check out “I Need Some Fine Wine and I Need You to Be Nicer” and “My Favorite Game” as examples of their more recent greats (but keep in mind that their entire catalog is great).
So, now that I’ve told you how much I like The Cardigans, I will admit that this has somewhat little to do with A Camp, Persson’s other project. The band features her lulling, flawless voice over more delicate arrangements and avoids the boisterous choruses in some of The Cardigans’ best work. A Camp does, however, feature the same wry lyrical twists and their cover choices for the night: David Bowie, Daniel Johnston, and Grace Jones, match those sensibilities (The Cardigans are known for their downtempo Black Sabbath covers).
A Camp has included Persson and guitarist Niclas Frisk since the early 2000s and now also features Persson’s husband and former Shudder to Think member Nathan Larson, keyboardist Emm Gryner (also a singer-songwriter) and drummer Lyle Molzan.
It was an absolute pleasure to hear the band perform and interact with the audience in a very down-to-Earth, friendly way. They played a long set with the three covers mixed in gently with their own work. I will add that the show was criminally underattended, but I have the impression that it’s only because people don’t know what they’re missing…
Check out this studio performance of my favorite A Camp song at WNYC:
Here’s a bit of video from the show at The Middle East:
Don’t be foolish and miss them next time they are in town!
Full Photo Set at: