Touring to promote the 20th anniversary of their “Gran Turismo” album, Swedish rock band The Cardigans drew a varied audience for their Manchester show at the Apollo Theatre. There were people who would have been teenagers when the album’s hit singles “My Favourite Game” and “Erase/Rewind” were gaining regular radio airplay and others who weren’t even born in 1998! The band’s fourth album, “Gran Turismo” saw the emergence of a darker, more electronica influenced sound, which was quite distinct from the light bounce of their international breakthrough hit, “Lovefool” from 1996 (famously used in the soundtrack to Baz Luhrmann’s film ‘Romeo + Juliet’).
The night’s entertainment began with support act Jenny Wilson, also from Sweden. Wilson’s set opened in theatrical style as she took to the stage in a long, bright green dress and started to sing rap with a heavily filtered vocal effect making her sound like a robot while a glitch beat built up to an electro-pulse. Behind her, a glitter jacketed assistant took her dress off revealing a sparkly top and trouser combo. Wilson then introduced herself and launched into her second song, minus the auto-tune effect. Her visual and musical style was reminiscent of the electro-clash sub-genre which emerged in the early 2000s (Wilson’s debut album was released in 2005). Wilson strutted around the stage with confidence. Her third song bubbled along with a hint if menace in its queasy electronics and its lyrics: “Who’s afraid of who?” intoned Wilson. As Wilson led into her fourth song, there was an onstage costume change and Wilson had a sparkling wig placed on her head. The electro-beat of this song powered along and as the stage lights hit Wilson’s wig, the light was reflected off it, making her shine. It was a very visual performance as much of a musical one, although much of the audience seemed to be holding out for the main event. While Wilson’s slot had some interesting music and a striking visual presence, the atmosphere in the venue suggested that most people had come for the guitar, bass, and drum-based rock music rather than an excursion into electro-pop.
The Cardigans entered to the stage and launched into “Paralysed,” the first track on the “Gran Turismo” album, with its droning guitars and Nina Persson’s soaring vocals garnering much appreciation from the audience. “Erase/Rewind” was up next (with pounding electro beats) and sounded even more epic than its studio counterpart. After a brief introduction from Persson that this part of the show was “Gran Turismo, baby!” the band fired up and tore into the album’s third track, “Explode” which boasted an astonishing guitar solo at the end, courtesy of Peter Svensson. It was while hearing the band tackle “Hanging Around,” the fifth track on the album, with its quiet-loud dynamic that one was reminded of the influence that The Cardigans, and the “Gran Turismo” album in particular, has had on a recent English rock band. If Mercury award winners Wolf Alice haven’t been influenced by the “Gran Turismo” album, and specifically “Hanging Around,” then it would be a huge surprise. As Svensson and second guitarist and keyboard player Lars-Olof Johansson traded guitar licks, Persson hopped onto the electronics during a crunching guitar solo, while the audience were clapping along. ”Marvel Hill” dripped with menace throughout but it was “My Favourite Game” which garnered huge cheers from the audience and, let loose on stage, the drumming really lifted the song. Persson introduced “Do You Believe” by sheepishly admitting that she felt that the song’s lyrics, which she wrote, were the ones which showed the album’s age the most; while there was an element of self-deprecation there, her point stood as the song’s lyrics transported us away from an era of political confusion to a simpler, kinder time. Maybe it was because it featured lyrics from a more optimistic, maybe even naïve, author or because nostalgia for bygone times holds such a strong pull on the cultural mood of today. Either way, Persson delivered a strong vocal performance, even though she may have felt embarrassed by the lyrics she’d written. “Junk of the Hearts”, the album’s penultimate track, acted as the band’s final performance from the album, and was the one song designed to get people waving their phones in the air. Album closer, “Nil,” an elegiac instrumental was rendered onstage by the solitary keyboard and electronics of Johansson.
The band returned for a run through of their other songs, or as Persson put it, a “smorgasbord”. At one point, Persson played harmonica and she played it very well. While these songs may not have been as well known to the more casual fan of The Cardigans, “Don’t Blame Your Daughter (Diamonds)” and the wonderfully titled “I Need Some Fine Wine and You, You Need to be Nicer” proved that over their extensive career, the band know how to craft and impeccably perform fine songs.
After leaving the stage to thunderous applause, the band returned for a three-song encore: “Communication,” a song which sounds more relevant than ever in our smartphone saturated age, then “the oldest song in the word, twenty-two years old” as Persson introduced “Lovefool.” This live rendition featured some very Nile Rodgers-esque guitar! To close the set, and the evening, came a “lullaby”: 03.45 No Sleep” which brought things gently back down to earth.
This set proved that with over two decades behind them, The Cardigans still know how to put on a gig and, more importantly, highlighted how their “Gran Turismo” album still sounds incredible twenty years' on!
Reviewer - Andrew Marsden
on - 3/12/18
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