A bit of explanation of the Suburbs of Sweden, to understand the full mening of the Topper song We live in the suburbs.. After the WW2 when the European cities got their town centres bombed to peaces, the architects decided to spread out the cities in smaller towns in satelite towns. I live in what is considered as the Suburbia masterpiece, Vällingby that was built in the mid fifties, A town that stood as model for many suburbs in both Sweden and the world. During the 60ies and 70ies Sweden built 1milion new apartements which went under the name Miljonprogrammet (Now you know what the title of Ligisternas CD "Miljonprogrammet" means). Building in such speed for a country of just 8 milions was not without problems.
At the same time unemployment struck the country as well as the drugs found its way to sweden, as well as the imigration increased not always without problems. Suburbia wasn´t that paradise that was the intention, in fact Swedes tend to call them Ghettos.
It is in the suburbs swedish punk, metal and hip hop scenes got started.
Being from the Suburbs is for many middle class, inner city, people the same as being a total failure.
Some suburbia songs to check out;
Ebba Grön - Only in it for the drugs pt1
Topper - We live in the suburbs
The Dräpers - Råby
Kasta Katt - Full, Fet och Fattig
Hårda Tider - Området & Packet
Now onto the review....
The event and the crowd
The night before I and the bassplayer from Utanförskapet, Björn, was chatting about that it might be a good idea to get bands from different genres to play the same night to get more people to the concerts. Bad idea, proved by this Saturday in the cellar club of Snövit. Lets say, the punks were in minority in this punk club. Hippies ala 70ies, leftist 70ies progg* rockers as well as bikers populated the packed club. As did the bands on stage, with a horrible result. Björn, hear me, it was a bad idea! The Stockholm syndrome of stay as a statue and not stir up a mosh pit was well practiced in absurdum. I did a try with no use at all.
The Bands
The Highway Men and Pizda...Forget about them on to the good stuff...
Topper are a Stockholm band that like Rancid have the Clash as role model which is not a bad thing.
In another place or universe Topper might been a huge band touring the world like Rancid. But they don´t, which I find most peculiar. They are no youngsters and beginners and know whats make good punk within their genre. The band are tight, catchy and very well sounding, especially the carismatic singer that seems to put his whole soul in every word sung/screamed. I cant believe I see such a great performance so close to the band. They out score Dropkick Murphys great performance on the much bigger stage with a much bigger crowd earlier this week big times. There are shivers running down my spine when I realize that I am experience this. However, they didn´t played or pushed their new digital single "Dårar" where they sing in Swedish. But we got their classic tunes "Once a Punk...", "Off She Goes" and the World class tune "We live in the Suburbs". The "We live in the Suburbs" made me burst into tears that only really good concerts do. I couldn´t belive my ears and eyes how good such good performance a bunch of old men from the suburbs could put on. I wrote last summer I saw the light at the Rancids performance in Gothenburg, this was something like it.
Worth the money? Are you kidding me? I payed 80SKr (8 Euros) for three bands, which I could spend the 80SKr on not listening to the two pretentious hippie and progg/prog bands. I could pay 800Skr for seeing Topper in such shape.
*Progg spelled with gg is a Swedish leftist genre that evolved from prog rock, protests songs, Marxism, Jazz and Hippie psychadelia, often with Swedish folk music and blues influences.
No comments:
Post a Comment