Dan In The Front Row: #23//Awsa Bergstrom//Notting Hill Arts Club//London//Friday 30th March

I have been 'Dan In The Front Row' for quite a while now and are there are many great things about it but by far the best is that it gives me the opportunity to meet so many interesting and talented people along the way.

At a recent www.sofarsounds.com gig in a strangers living room in Hackney i had the pleasure of being sat next to the incredibly gifted and beautiful Awsa Bergstrom.

Awsa is a singer/songwriter from Scandinavia who is now based in West London, she has performed with many legendary acts over the years including Madonna, Nick Cave, Stevie Wonder and Elbow to name but a few and has graced some of the world's greatest stages from The Royal Albert Hall to Wembley.

Awsa is now recording and performing her own material and has lots of exciting projects in the pipe line, she kindly invited me to the famous Notting Hill Arts Club to see her perform at the Rock The Belles night (rockthebelles.com) , I had a feeling i would not be disappointed.

The Arts Club is a famous old venue that has a seen many great artists hit it's stage over the years aswell as hosting epic House music parties, it is a small cavernous space with low lights and a great atmosphere. It's a pretty perfect little joint to experience Awsa's brand of Electro pop.
The room was practically full as Awsa and her band took to the stage and right from the off she had the audience eating out of the palm of her hand, she is a very charismatic front woman and her confident banter was very well received.
By the second verse of opening track 'Maybe' most people were dancing and this pretty much set the standard for the rest of the show. The highlights for me came in the middle of the set with the incredibly charming 'Innocence', i love the playful tone of this song and you can actually here her accent on this track which i love, this was preceded by 'Do it again' which has a gloriously sleazy chorus that had me hot under the collar as i watched her sing the words on stage! This is the sort of song that Alison Goldfrapp and Kylie Minogue would love to get their hands on. Awsa does exude Scandinavian vibes which works to her advantage, i could hear the best bits of Robyn and The Knife in some of the music but she also has the stage presence and sex appeal of Lykke Li, i really like the Scandinavian angle and it is part of the draw for me.
The show ended with a rousing rendition of 'If i could let go' with Awsa cutting one on the stage grinning from ear to ear, as i looked around the room that's pretty much what everyone else was doing too!

SET LIST

1, Maybe
2, Lost in translation
3, Do it again http://youtu.be/J5BXXXOXJgk
4, Innocence
5, There's got to be a cure http://youtu.be/5IWN5caeZK4
6, If i could let go http://youtu.be/hcZQ6IqNLWw

Awsa's voice is ridiculously good, click on the links above to see some of her videos and hear it for yourselves. You must check out her cover of Emili Sande's 'Heaven' too cos it is pretty special: http://youtu.be/Zwqu3ISVzXo

NITTY GRITTY

Venue: Decent, smaller venues are always better, you don't need me to tell you this, right next to the tube at Notting Hill Gate too, sweet.
Drinks: Before 9pm it was £2.50 a beer which is pretty reasonable but after 9pm it seemed to go up to £4.50, i know it's possible i may have been merked at the bar by a new waitress or something but if that was a genuine price hike then that is not on, after Awsa performed it was a club night so i can see this happening to be honest.
Crowd: cool mix of mostly people in their late 20's and lots of hot girls which is always great.
Ok, ok so we know Awsa is good but is she cool?: Yeah she's cool, she has that gorgeous Scandi thing going on and she was rocking a funky haircut with a sheer blouse over black bra combo, (which i'm loving on chicks right now, so take note girls, this is a good look, haha), she's a cool customer.