Stop Us Not

Peter Moren - Monto Water Rats, London, UK - 15 April 2008 - live review

Yesterday I went to see Peter Moren play a show at Monto Water Rats. Last week I heard his song “Social competence” (check it out here) and thought it was rather pleasant, so I decided to go and see him play live. Before I went to the gig I listened to his album a few times, but was quite disappointed since it’s a dull collection of songs. There are about two decent songs on it, and one of them is “Social competence” (the other one is “Reel to real” that you can listen to below), the rest is a snooze fest. The support act for the night was fellow Swede Tobias Fröberg. Man, he was a handful! His songs are very poor and monotonous, and his banter between songs got more and more bizarre throughout the night. He tried to be funny but he just reminded me of an unfunny version of Andy Kaufman’s Latka character. He looked quite ill too, pale and pasty, the whole performance was quite excruciating, like watching your weird uncle trying to tell a joke that just isn’t funny – for 45 minutes. Peter Moren was much better, but still not that great, his songs just don’t cut the mustard! At the end he decided to play a cover of a-ha’s “Take on me”, but only after he’d slagged off the lyrics. It was a horrible end to a dreadful night (musicwise, thankfully the beer tasted good, I like Water Rats as a venue and I was in good company). I filmed a bit of “Take on me” on my rubbish mobile phone camera (it’s very, very poor quality but still not as bad as the actual performance itself) before I decided to call it a night. Man, I hate going to shows when the bands suck!

Peter Moren – Reel to real

Labels: Peter Bjorn and John, Peter Moren, Tobias Fröberg

By Stop Us Not
On 16 April 2008
At 3:25 pm

Peter - less Bjorn and John

The magnificent “Young folks” by Peter, Bjorn and John, is actually from their third album (not everyone knows that!). I didn’t like their two first albums and I thought “Writer’s block” was pretty average, thus I didn’t jump out of my shoes with joy when I heard that Peter Moren was doing a solo record. Now I’ve heard a song (“Social competence”, you can listen to it below) from his upcoming album, and my mind has slightly changed. “Social competence” is a pretty nice little track, with a chorus that reminds me of Wham’s “Freedom”. Moren’s coming to the UK for a few shows starting next week. Who knows, I might just go and check him out. These are the dates:

15 April – Monto Water Rats, London
16 April – The Junction, Cambridge
17 April – The Roundhouse, Manchester
28 April – Captains Rest, Glasgow

Peter Moren – Social competence

Labels: Peter Bjorn and John, Peter Moren

By Stop Us Not
On 8 April 2008
At 3:00 pm