Kings of Convenience

Show Date: 2005-02-10
Venue : World Cafe Live
by John MacDonald

Thankfully, these existential tensions are of no concern to the Kings of Convenience. Bergen, Norway’s soft-singing sons -- one goofy and impossibly thin with a ragged mop of red hair and joke-shop glasses, the other dashing, toned and with a faultlessly humble wit -- epitomize cross-demographic reconciliation. Massaged by their Simon & Garfunkle harmonies and deft finger-pinking, the few mortgage-owners scattered throughout the crowd could smile knowing a stony-eyed huckster and a well-groomed professional could exist on the same stage.

Of course, these guys didn’t show up to sooth anyone’s mid-life anxiety. While Erik Glambek Boe has a background in psychology and Erland Oye’s father shrunk heads for a living, nobody was playing them to be therapists Thursday night. The Kings came to play the hell out of their Martins and tell a couple jokes. And that’s exactly what they did.

On its surface, Oye and Boe’s mellow folk can seem deeply melancholic -- more Nick Drake than Cat Stevens -- but their performance teased out their music’s playful irony. Tunes like “Toxic Girl” from 2001’s Quiet is the New Loud and the brilliant “Homesick” from last year’s Riot on an Empty Street were given a weightless informality that shed light on the music’s shadows. The duo even found time for a surprise cover of Pavement’s “Range Life” (played solo with Oye on the keyboard) and a rendition of Tom Petty’s classic “American Girl,” which had the crowd singing along and utterly charmed.

That charm wasn’t just a product of their music, though. While Boe sat grinning and tolerant, Oye ambled over the stage, eyeing women for a “hook-up,” doing what must have been the Norwegian version of the twist, and even adjusting the levels on his partner’s guitar mid-song. While these antics came close to overshadowing the music, Boe’s color-man had enough sense to shut-up went it mattered. And that Oye could manage those delicate harmonies in the midst of such larking made the Kings’ music all the more impressive.

Their performance revealed the Kings as masters of reconciliation -- musical and otherwise. The dramatic irony of their stage presence and Oye’s college-radio humor gave a complexity to the Kings’ candle-light folk, making it music not so much for wedding anniversaries than for anyone who’s learned to appreciate music without fuzz pedals. It was truly an all-ages show for anyone older than twenty-one.