Photos of Anna Calvi on Roskilde Festival 2011

One of the best concerts of this years Roskilde Festival IMHO. Anna Calvi is young and intense, but definately with a strong opinion in music. She’s not a sell-out-I’ll-do-anything-for-fame, but a real musician. It’s only a three-person band, Anna Calvi on guitar (a trademark battered Telecaster), Mally Harpaz on harmonium, percussion and about anything she can hit and finally Daniel Maiden-Wood on drums and vocals.

Anna Calvi in concert

The music and feel of it is very intense. Sort of like a stringy metallic sound, but with a big sensual vibe. Some critics have compared the music with slow 60′s guitar rock, but I’m not sure. Anna Calvi sounds a bit like Patti Smith and has this dark sexy voice which stands out to her petite appearance. And she can play a guitar for sure. With a weird circular stroke Anna Calvi can make her guitar sound like everything from extreme noisecore to country. Quite mad in a very good way. I simply couldn’t predict how the next song would sound, since I have’nt heard her before.

But it almost didn’t happen. After shooting a lot of metal concerts on Friday, and generally being a bit knackered, we headed out after Portishead on Orange stage to finde some dub-concert, my mates wanted to see. It wasn’t (and isn’t) my cup of tea, but I didn’t have any vote in the matter, because I have dragged them to all metal concerts all day long. By a stroke of luck I led them into the wrong tent just before midnight and suddenly this small woman with a very large Fender Telecaster entered the stage and opened up with dreamy and edgy songs and a voice that kicked me in the neck and a guitar handling, that knocked my teeth in = Anna Calvi. Anna Calvi and a really cool drummer and a multi-percussionist (or what it’s called – she beat on everything, she had close to her), created a very special sound, that was impossible to let go.

She not only impressed me, but also the rest of the tent and got great reviews from even the rather pissed off critics in the Danish press.

Anna Calvi was one of the best concerts of Roskilde Festival 2011 for me – if not the best.

After Roskilde Festival 2011, Anna Calvi went back on tour in Europe and returned to Denmark in October 2011 to play in a sold out “Lille Vega”, where my GF – much on my demand – and me went to see her. And again Anna Calvi delivered a fantastic concert. She is definately to be seen live.