Thursday 25th June

Thåström (3/5)

Joakim Thåström is almost about the closest thing you can get to a living legend on the swedish music scene. From his classic debut in suburbian punk rockers Ebba Grön he followed that huge success with one after another…through Imperiet, Peace Love And Pitbulls he is now probably on the peak of his career with his solo project.

The music has shifted through the early punk, to rock, more poppy tunes, industrial rock and now he’s currently enjoying storming reviews with his close to singer/songwriter style. And that’s probably what is bugging me about his concert at Peace & Love 2009. Hands down…I just LOVE his latest mellow, acoustic stuff, where he opens his heart and tells his life story totally, and that works on a solo tour where you pay to see Thåström and only Thåström. But not at a festival. This man sits on of the world’s greatest song treasures and could easily pick out concert material with one eye closed and still have a success…so why doesn’t he?

Instead he ruins the normally punk rock kick ass ravaging ”Miss Huddinge -72” by turning it into a slow, moaning version which makes the crowd standing there with their hands in their pockets. During the songs he sports his very personal dance with his fingers tweaking around his face and manic walks back and forth on stage.

You can tell that he prefers the slower pace so newer songs like ”Fan Fan Fan” and ”Ingen Sjunger Blues Som Jeffrey Lee Pearce” seems more like where he has his heart at the moment.

When he finishes his gig with an old Ebba Grön hit ”Die Mauer” (of course a slow song…what did you expect?) the crowd sings along magically and it’s absolutely beautiful, no doubt about that.

But at the same time you leave unsatisfied. You want to leave with a smile saying ”Wow, he really kicked as tonight!” but you leave thinking ”Well…it was ok.” The best song tonight was ”Var É Vargen” – untouched, rocking and up tempo. But where was ”…Ingen Neråtsång”?

Check out Thåström :
www.thastrom.se

Review and Photos : Joachim Ljungh

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