While you read this, I suggest you listen to the following selection of tracks from concerts I attended, so that you feel like you were there too !
1. Hey! Get Out Of My Way (Paris, Erotica 1996)
2. Celia Inside (Paris, Erotica 1996)
3. Been It (Paris, Elysée Montmartre 1999)
4. Lovefool (Paris, Elysée Montmartre 1999)
5. A Camp - Frequent Flyer (Paris, Le Cabaret Sauvage 2001)
6. A Camp - I Can Buy You (Paris, Le Cabaret Sauvage 2001)
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I discovered the Cardigans in May 1995. Wow, that was 16 years ago ! I was in my room while some radio played Sick & Tired and I was simply amazed by what I heard. I was staring at the speakers, trying to understand how something could sound so beautiful. I taped two thirds of the song and the next problem was : who was that ? They played this song as a filler and no DJ said anything about it.
No Internet yet to search info. I tried to find who they could be with my meagre clues by browsing endlessly in my usual record shop, but I wasn’t successful. Fortunately, about a week later, some local radio played In the afternoon (or maybe Black letter day ?), I recognized the voice (THE voice!) and they were kind enough to tell the title of song and the name of the band. I rushed to my record store the next day to buy Emmerdale, and that was it, I was hooked.
What was kind of frustrating is that I only had this single album to play, as, I guessed, this was their first one. I only had to regularly check my record store, hoping there would be another one coming one of these days. And it did, late 1995, Life was released, with a slight disappointment that it included some songs already featured in Emmerdale (it was the UK version and not the original Swedish one). Around this time I managed to make a friend addicted to them too (although not as seriously as me).
I first saw the Cardigans in concert in May 1996. Purely by chance I happened to find that they would play a very small venue in Paris (they were virtually unknown, not played on national radios or TV channels or anything). So I travelled 400 km to see them (that was a short trip compared to what was to come) in this “Erotica” hall. Maybe 200 people, and funnily, maybe more Japanese people than French. I didn’t know about the success of the band in Japan yet, but it all made sense later. And they were screamin “En gång till” (“one more time !”) in Swedish, now, that was exotic. I remember thinking later that I was in France, along with Japanese people, listening to a Swedish band singing songs in English. About the concert itself, well, it was obviously fantastic, with this funny contrast between Nina, very calm, snapping her fingers as the ultimate stage action, and Peter and Magnus who were jumping everywhere all the time. They played Step on me which was yet unreleased at that time and had me clapping at the wrong time, thinking that the song was finished when it wasn’t... I also rem
ember Lasse’s old-looking keyboard with a Star Wars “May the force be with you” sticker on it. Great concert, but way too short, barely one hour. But you can’t expect more from a band that had only two albums released, I guess. Another regret : they had theses great “We’re the Cardigans, and you’re not” T-shirts for sale, and I didn’t buy one, as they were extremely expensive. Now I wish I had.
Came Lovefool and everything changed. Until then when I spoke about the band to some of my friends, I always had to explain who they were, nobody had heard about them. And suddenly I found myself being a fan of a fashionable band, which I certainly didn’t see coming. I was probably slightly less enthusiastic about First band on the moon than about the first two albums, but I still enjoyed it very much, Lovefool included.
But when Gran Turismo was released, I was at first not thrilled at all, except by the instantly catchy My Favourite Game. I have a tendency to prefer “natural” instruments to electronic ones, so it took me a while to get used to this album, and find that there were still great melodies (which is always what attracts me in the first place) buried under the electronica.
I think that’s around the First Band On The Moon era that I wrote to Stockholm Records to request autographs from the band. They were away on tour at the time, but I was sent a great (real) autographed picture of the band in tennis clothes.
My next opportunity to see the Cardigans in concert came in April 1999. Once more I had to travel to Paris, book a hotel room close to the Elysée Montmartre hall where they played (a much bigger venue than the Erotica !) I had just dropped my stuff in my hotel room and went down for a walk in the streets, when in Rue Dancourt I stumbled upon Nina and her boyfriend (was it Nathan Larson yet ? Can’t remember). I just couldn’t believe it (what are the odds ?), I somehow managed to ask for her autograph (I had a pen and some paper, just in case), tell her “see you tonight at the concert” and that was it. I certainly didn’t want to disturb them more, and away they went. And away I went with a big silly smile on my face. I hope they erected a statue in Rue Dancourt to commemorate the event !
The concert itself illustrated how things had changed for the band since I last saw them. Bigger hall, I was much further from the stage, which was disappointing. Magnus wasn’t there, being too tired and stressed by life on the road, Nina was experiencing throat problems (some gigs had to be cancelled to preserve her voice) and seemed rather gloomy. At one point during the concert, she said “You’re very quiet... Do you hate us ?”, which is something that might be a bit dangerous to tell the audience... It goes without saying that I enjoyed the concert, anyway, but things had clearly changed. Later, Magnus told me how much pressure there was on the band then, and how close they were to breaking up.
By the way, got my first Cardigans T-shirt there. “Gran Truismo”, it said !
I saw the band perform again a few months later, in July 1999, in La Rochelle, on the Atlantic Coast, in a festival called “Les Francofolies”, usually devoted to French-speaking artists only, but for whatever reason they had decided to bring a few English-speaking bands, so they were there, playing a slightly shorter set than in Paris, mostly Gran Turismo songs. Once again I was too far from the stage for my taste. I can’t say I have lots of memories from this concert.
A few days later I went to Sweden for the first time. I had been invited there by a girl that I had met through the Cardigans’ website forum a few months before, who had also bought for me Peter Svensson’s solo album, Paus, that wasn’t available outside of Sweden. She was a Cardigans’ fan, especially interested in Magnus, but maybe not only for musical reasons. We were staying in Lund, a beautiful little town close to Malmö. We had a phonebook for Malmö (a Swedish phonebook is a funny thing : dozens of pages of “Svensson”, dozens of pages of “Persson”...) and I can’t remember how, but she got what seemed to be the right address for Magnus. We went to Malmö, found the right building, but we were both too shy to try to ring at Magnus’s door. Just took a pic of me in front of the door. With stalkers like us, he was safe, really. We also went “where the magic happened”, to Tambourine Studios, which we had a hard time finding. The doors were closed, quite obviously.
Later, my Swedish friend got to meet Magnus when he was DJing in a club in Malmö. She told her about our attempts, he said we should have rung, he would have given us a tour of Tambourine... Oh, the regrets !
During this stay, we also went to a music festival that took place in Malmö. Not that the Cardigans were performing there or anything, but that was nice to hear some good Swedish bands, and the icing on the cake was that Peter Svensson was there in the crowd, and I got to shake his hand and tell him how much I enjoyed his Paus album. (I might be the only, or one of the only person(s) in France to own this album, by the way...)
Later that year I created a website dedicated to the Cardigans, that I naturally called Sick And Tired, both in French and English.
To be continued !
