From Aural Innovations #29 (October 2004)
This concert was part of the Nordlys Festival, featuring folk music bands from all over Scandinavia but mainly Sweden and Denmark. It was the first time that Garmarna had ever played in Copenhagen, surprisingly enough, as other Swedish bands like Hoven Droven and Hedningarna play here at least once a year. Anyway, a new Swedish folk band called FOMP opened the show on this cold and rainy night. Quite a few people were dressed in medieval clothes including a guy at the door in full plate mail armour! FOMP were a five piece with two violins, acoustic guitar and ord like guitar, drums and percussion (he also played penny whistle and other strange wind instruments) and some sort of hurdy gurdy like string instrument. They were really excellent players and the people really enjoyed it a lot and were dancing in circles in the front of the stage.
It took longer than I expected but soon Garmarna were up and about 250-300 people were now here on this Thursday night. The band opened with a brand new song, "Dagen Gryr", which had another feel to it than the material from, say, the Hildegard von Bingen CD. Next up was "Gamen and Euchari" from the Vedergällningen CD. The band played three songs from the Guds Spelemän CD (my favourite) including "Min Man", "Vänner och Fränder" and "Sir Holger". The band played another new song, which was really nice. "Salvatoris", "Viridissima Virga" and "Kyrie" were played from the Hildegard von Bingen CD. The regular concert ended with a really cool hurdy gurdy jam. Stefan is pretty damn incredible on violin and hurdy gurdy. Emma sounded fantastic. Her voice is just amazing. The whole band played great and the crowd loved it. They came back and played three encores for a total of about 90 minutes of music. A great night.
Set list: Dagen Gryr, Gamen, Euchari, Min Man, Vänner och Fränder, Salvatoris, Den Bortsålada, Herr Mannelig, new song, Herr Holkin, Sorgsen ton, Herr Holger>Jam, Bläck, Viridissima Veirga, Kyrie
For more information you can visit: http://www.nordlysfestival.dk.
Reviewed by Scott Heller