Be informed

I am not sure I have ever been to back-to-back gigs. But last week we went to see Aurora at the Royal Albert Hall (first time going to see something that was not a BBC Prom) and Pond at the Electric Ballroom in Camden, London.

We’ve enjoyed these two sets of artists for many years, but it is only the second time that we have seen either of them – Aurora most recently at Pryzm in Kingston and Pond at Concorde 2 in Brighton (in 2015).

Aurora is a 28-year old Norwegian singer songwriter. She is certainly more than that as this RAH show demonstrates. Her backing graphics (see left) are full-on avant garde. Her songs are political, personal and political and personal. We discovered her music in our search for environmentally-themed songs. Aurora’s most explicit is The Seed “When the last tree has fallen and the rivers are poisoned, you cannot eat money, oh no:” But her new Album, Whatever happened to the Heart, is a concept album around the heart as muscle, symbol of love and the beating of our world more generally. It is an opus – all that is needed to navigate a world full of hate, wonder, beauty and opportunity (if we choose to take it).

Aurora is a performer, for sure. She is not Dua Lipa with complex dance routines. She is not really stadium music – the RAH is a big venue and takes immense talent and presence to keep its attention. Tickets sold fast and we were relegated to the Rausing Circle, rather in the heavens. The RAH has something that other venues on this tour do not. That thing is the amazing organ. Aurora somehow got Anna Lapwood (right) to rearranged three songs to incorporate that instrument. For me, at least, that addition was beguiling (I love the organ sound in any case). The three songs – Echo of my Shadow, The River and The Seed – elevated this concert beyond what was already memorable. Anna Lapwood is an Associate Artist at the RAH – but so much more than that). Her joy was captured as she let the organ rip during The Seed.

Aurora also engages with her audience. It is not scripted. It is not “[h]ow are your feeling?”. For example, it is not surprising that she was overwhelmed by a full RAH for her own show (she has performed there before). Aurora will conjure up images that one rarely gets from other artists. “We are told the obvious that the RAH is circular. But then “”…it’s like a soup. It’s round”. And later, in a common monologue about the state of the world she tells us “that we wear our love on our hands like a glove…” There is always some unexpected reference to her personal preferences often involving alcohol and sex. The audience hangs on her every word, despite her being only a Norwegian singer songwriter. To some extent she could be Dua Lipa but chooses not to be.

Pond’s frontman and leader, Nick Allbrook (left) is as charismatic as Aurora, though we know nothing of his politics. His approach to engagement with the audience is to ask it to crowd surf him, three times. He has also come forward and physically touched fans – there were plenty of takers.

Sonically, Pond are loud – don’t even think about going without earplugs. The new 10th album is much more rock than the psychedelia that so attracted me to them 9 years’ earlier. I’m Stung, the title track of the new album, is a corker and is about love, of course. “She’s the one” sums it up nicely.

The band more generally are multi-instrumentalists. Allbrook plays guitar and keyboards – and more recently flute. Though he is no Ian Anderson standing on one leg. He’s more likely to stand on his head. The other two core members of the band, Jay Watson and Shiny Joe Ryan (right) are no extras. Watson started out on keyboards and then moved to drums (percussion is also a significant element of the sonic experience).

The venue could not be more different to the RAH. The Electric Ballroom is a classic venue – a dark hole with bars dotted around the periphery. It is all stand, though there are a few seats on the balcony – though there is nothing to be seen if that is where you park yourself during the gig. It can get very lively and Nick Allbrook wants that of his audience – the more they pogo, the better. For those of us of a certain vintage, that is time to step aside and leave the central floor to others.

These were two exceptional nights. No disappointments. Quite the contrary. And whilst Pond had no organ equivalent, their sheer energy…bearing in mind that they are moving through the age range…cannot help but be infectious, even if only emotionally.