The Rumour Said Fire

support The New Spring
author TAJ date 25/11/12 venue Lille Vega, Copenhagen, DEN

Arriving at tonight’s sold out TRSF (The Rumour Said Fire) show at Lille Vega I quickly notice that a portion of the attenders are fairly nicely dressed up looking more like they are heading for town than to a concert. I enter the concert room and connected bar-lounge area where a cheerful atmosphere dominates with people chatting lively and sipping beers.

The New Spring

The support group of tonight is a trio consisting of a frontman on vocals/guitar accompanied by one playing both keyboard and flute as well as a drummer. A silent and humble entrance followed by equally calm and tender tones fills the room as they start playing. Their music appears to be built with acoustic guitar finger play doing continuous patterns with chord changes along the way, peaceful synth and occasional light drumming which provides a tranquil feel to fill the air. Unfortunately the band's smooth tunes are in battle with a loud humming of chatting coming from the crowd, and especially the more quiet parts of the song fail their potential mesmerising effect due to this. The next song follows the same track but has a deep sounding drum added every fourth second or so, and if not before, the sound is now reminiscent of Kurt Vile (on record that is) and this song specifically shows similarities to his song "Ghost Town". The set continues without much variation and people are still talking lively, running up the number of ruined quiet moments. Five songs into set the frontman breaks the otherwise more withdrawn stage appearance and asks the people to retreat to the lounge area if they want to talk, which improves the situation yet not enough to stop hindering the show. When the last two songs of the sets are played the song protocol differs. Now sudden quick and or loud parts from the guitar jumps into the songs, and some even build up slowly to a loud peak towards the end.

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The Rumour Said Fire

Vega's background music stops, and finally the crowd's humming ceases for the night and the room is filled by anticipating stares locked onto the stage. The band members emerge and position themselves on stage while the soothing notes of “Province III” leak from the speakers helping the crowd get on board the dreamy journey which is to begin. As the set quickly glides into “Voyager” a slow, yet ever-changing light show sets into motion, which with great success contributes to the mystical journey already set by the songs so far. The vocals from front man Jesper Lidang are remarkably accurate and even stronger compared to the record, as they are performed so powerfully he manages to break the occasional obscurity found on record from heavy use of reverb. It is a perfect balance not losing the floating feel of the vocals yet having the voice standing out clearly. As a matter of fact the veins in his neck pulse enough to show visibility for remainder of the set. Also Jesper Lidang appears very passionate and while he remains relatively static most of the time he is energetically doing jolts in rhythm to the music. The dreamy atmosphere keeps up with more songs from “Dead Ends” while all along the light show bids in with patterns in multiple colours mixing like liquids all the way to black/white star-like imagery.

In a momentary pause between songs Jonas Lidang jokes that “Forbrydelsen” (the Danish version of “The Killing”) is keeping people from showing up (This show humbly being in Lille Vega, despite the band previously having played sold out Store Vega) as well as stating that it’s time to stir up a party mood, and hence the band proceed to play a couple of older songs starting with “Sentimentally Falling”. This harvests great response from the crowd which so far has been restricted to a few widespread nodding heads. The light alters to a more static approach with mostly mono-coloured light spots to carpet the stage as the older more folk directed songs are on, although “Sentimentally Falling” gets some light flames someplace into the song.

By now the mood has elevated and as The Rumour Said Fire start playing the single “Dead Leaves” a few starts dancing, jumping and in other manners showing enthusiasm. This being the first track from the new album receiving remarkable response and as it ends the whole room is clapping. Following numbers, even though being up beat tracks as “Dead Leaves”, have numerous onlookers back to only staring. But from this point on general approval is seen mostly in the great enthusiasm shown by massive clapping between songs.

As TRSF leave the stage for a shorter period before the encore it appears the crowd has been awaiting this moment or possibly truly believing this is the end, resulting in greater response than seen at any point so far with both the clapping going wild, loud whistling, and thunderous stomping. To no surprise their next song you undoubtedly know, if you have lived in Denmark during 2010/11, namely “The Balcony”. This song is able to invoke sentimental chills running down the spine of any person capable of emotions, hence I expect a nearly magical timeless moment. These high expectations are not even closely matched, as tonight's “The Balcony” comes of even weaker than the recorded version. For tonight the state of spirit which made Jesper Lidang's voice sparkle with authenticity in this song has altered and in this moment it strikes me the vocals of tonight have been far better in songs from “Dead Ends” where his heart presumably currently resides. Moving onto another radio-played song “Destroyer” I mentally declare the night over as all ‘required’ songs are played, but I am pleasantly surprised to find this isn't the end.

The gape of "The Balcony"'s missing magical moment is filled from smooth tunes from “Séance” which also has this natural build-up towards the song's end, gliding to the final song of tonight's set, “The Oracle”, which has a much stronger impact live and with its fitting drumbeat it makes people join in for united clapping. Seeing how great these two kind of unexpected set enders work, I leave the venue with an elated feeling and a smile upon the lips. That seems to be the general mood given the many smiles and a few overheard conversations revealing the new material has made a positive impact even though it appears to be fairly unknown to many before this show.

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Setlist

  • 1. Provence III
  • 2. Voyager
  • 3. Moon Stream
  • 4. Beneath The Waves
  • 5. Sentimentally Falling
  • 6. Sanctuary
  • 7. Evil Son
  • 8. Dead Leaves
  • 9. Reckless Hearts
  • Encore
  • 10. The Balcony
  • 11. Destroyer
  • 12. Séance
  • 13. The Oracle

Photos by Louis Aubergine

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