Our favorite folk pop duo Smith & Thell ended their Swedish tour with an emotional gig at Bar Brooklyn in Stockholm, and of course we were there.
Maria Jane Smith and Victor Thell have been churning out one perfectly crafted folk pop tune after another since their Hippie Van that came out in 2014 – having moved away from their earlier electronic sound in favor of the more organic. Their debut album Soulprints came out in 2017 and it was packed to the rim with sparkles of pop genius, contagious acoustic guitar riffs and wonderful harmonies.
Maria and Victor have also made a name for themselves as bona fide songwriters for other artists, including some of Sweden’s biggest stars like Darin, Molly Sandén and Oscar Zia.
Their big breakthrough has come in 2018 though, with the song Forgive Me Friend, which took them to the top of the Swedish Spotify charts and has been on heavy rotation in both public and commercial radio.
After the release of their new EP in mid-November, the duo headed out on a Swedish tour of a dozen dates. The last date on the tour brought them to the intimate stage at Bar Brooklyn in Stockholm. The crowd was into it from the start and songs like Row and Hey Hey Oh Bae got the energy levels high early on in the set.
The most enthusiastic fans sang along to pretty much every word of every song. And well, some really devoted fans had flown in all the way from Germany and Austria.
The sing-along reached an emotional high during Girl from the Sea, when the the audience countered Maria’s angelic vocals with a choir of their own and moved Maria to tears. For that moment in time, she must have felt there’s quite a few others who are odd like her…
Andreas Moe turned up for a guest appearance on Feathers & Gasoline, and the momentum stayed high for the most part of the gig… Until they really piled up the big tunes at the end with Statue “ending” the set and the encores Toast and Forgive Me Friend giving the crowd a final high on the happy hormones.
