Bryde at Oslo

17 March, 2022

Tonight’s rearranged Bryde gig was at one of my least favourite venues, Oslo Hackney. Known for its annoying security enforcing stupid rules. At one point they had a yellow line about two paces from the stage and security used to tell you off if your toe went over the line (literally). If I see gigs at Oslo, I will give them a miss. I just can’t be bothered to go to a venue that treats you like a child. So artists who drag me there are usually special and Bryde is a special artist. (and because of their attitude towards cameras, I only had a pocket camera with me)

Thankfully, tonight, Oslo seem to have dialled back their policies and it felt like a normal gig. If this is now standard practice, then I will go to more gigs here.

Opening the evening was a rusty Lindsay Munroe. The set was rather pleasant, as was Lindsay, apologising for singing a sad song, ‘Andrew’. It wasn’t particularly sad and it didn’t alter the flow of the upbeat set. Stoping regularly to retune, unfortunately, Lindsay kept rushing her retunes, causing her to stop songs. Personally, I don’t mind mistakes. They add a human touch. But there wasn’t any need to rush. The audience were very accommodating.

Next up, TIIVA wasn’t my type of music, mainly electronic but thankfully with live drums and accents of bass and sax. Performance wise, TIIVA were pretty good. Though I felt most of the songs were lyrically repetitive often comprising of a verse and then a repeating chorus for the rest of the song. In fairness, this allowed TIIVA to move around the stage and perform each song, which she did really well. But the music didn’t work for me.

During lockdown Bryde released ‘The Volume of Things’, her second solo album. This was meant to be the tour for that album and sadly this was our first opportunity to hear many of these songs live. It also featured a few songs from her forthcoming third album, released later this year. This gap is meaning many great albums aren’t being given their chance to shine as artists understandably hit the studios when they were unable to tour and have their minds on new music. It will be interesting to see how many of these songs stay in the set.

The thing I love about Bryde is how she switches from quiet to loud so effortlessly in her songs. Something played to great effect on her first album. She moved from the ‘Paper Aeroplanes’ folksy sound to sprinkle in a more direct rock sound allowing her to change up songs. It worked really well. Her latest album turns down the notch slightly and makes less use of these changes. But the mix tonight of a more laid back sound interspersed with songs from the first album worked really well and there was a really nice flow which helped showcase Bryde’s fantastic vocals. Closing the evening was my highlight. ‘To Be Brave’ effortlessly sliding into ‘Less’. A really fine set.

Set List