”StrAeight from Stockholm, exclusive Germany-gig”, it said on Magnet Club’s homepage, about the Niva concert at their 11th ”Sweden Sweden” event. Well, if exclusive means short, it was really exclusive. It must have taken the Swedish electropop artist, formerly known as The Quietboy, a lot longer to get from the airport to the venue, than it did to actually perform the concert, and the airport in Berlin is not that far away. We only got 25 minutes from the concert. All in all. That was it.
Having said that, the exclusive ”chillwave” demonstration did turn out to be a nice acquaintance. The sound was great, atmospheric synth waves, an electronic beat and two vocals, with Niva as the lead. It wasn’t as chilled as the recorded version of the music. The beat was more in front, and it was undoubtedly more a concert for dancers than for listeners. But as such, it worked well. Starting off with a characteristic clave beat, and the song ”Dizzyeyes” from Niva’s upcoming EP, the few people, who had actually shown up at Magnet Club before 1 pm, slowly began to move their feet, and as the concert moved forward with similarly pounding electronic beats, the dance floor started to fill up.
Finishing off with my favorite ”Ghost In My Head”, I was really amazed that everything just went silent after that. I wouldn’t call a 25 minute act a concert, but it seemed that most people didn’t go there for the concert, but just for a night out at Magnet Club, and that the Niva act was just a live contribution to the Swedish, dance friendly DJ set. And like I said, as such, it worked well.
