06 November 2014 (gig)
09 November 2014
I seemed to be one of the few who had decided to check out Erland Oye & The Rainbows, on this warm November night in Milan. There were 230 of us in this massive new venue, ‘Fabrique’ which has a capacity of 3000; (hey,I got there early; I wondered if I could count everyone; I could!)
Lucky for me though as I was able to check out the support, a band that hailed from Naples called ‘Fitness Forever’ who deserve more than a mere mention. They were simply, great! Extravagantly arranged songs with nods to mid 70’s artists like Steely Dan, Andrew Gold, Lucio Battisti in their pop/disco/jazz grandiose expressions.
They had fun on stage; it’s tongue in cheek pop but being a very able, musically deft, seven piece band, led by the charming Carlos and the delightful and gorgeous Carola, the ensemble, with it’s cool singalong pop tunes, has you hooked. They deserve further exposure beyond the land of pizza and please check them out on the net with a new album ‘Cosmos’ recently released.
Erlend Oye of Kings Of Convenience fame is a rather strange cad. Awkward in his stance but ultimately very ‘simpatico’ in his rather spaced out way. Very tall, thin and nerdy he ambles on with white trousers, a jean shirt and daring but horrible gold coloured necklace.
He is here to promote his new solo album ‘Legao’ recorded in Iceland (indeed Sigurour an Icelandic, maverick musician leads The Rainbows on stage) and quite frankly, “dance”. Unfortunately for him and us, I haven’t seen such oddball moves since Simon Le Bon’s New Romantic days. It was awful(ly funny)!
Luckily, the songs fare much better, and with a loose sometimes reggae sometimes soul base, they are still musically rich as is Erland’s want. He is a master of melody and each song in the set has it’s moments of delicious harmony and/or great guitar/keyboard licks.
Interspersed with solo or acoustic offerings from KoC and other solo stuff including some Italian songs( he lives part-time in Sicily and has learnt the language) it all added up to a very loose and pleasant evening, for the small but attentive crowd.
