Ohh, those sweet swirls of riffs and smoke, the smells and rawk symphonies of the sixties from Sweden’s Dungen. Taking a detour from their support of Wolfmother, Dungen hypnotised their audience at the Corner Hotel who had come in from the bitter cold to take in the warming sounds of vintage equipment and liquid projections.
The band graced the stage slightly late. With their cheesecloth shirts and voluminous hair they looked the part. Their impressive onstage equipment made the act. First thing we notice is Fredrik’s silver spangled drum kit. Then Reine picks up a worn white fenderesque guitar with curly red lead, he has a look like Kurt Cobain and a guitar like Hendrix. Reine has a curious machine on his rig, an Echolette tape delay. It sits, as it is, a gold brick of equipment above his amp, a vintage marshall. Gustav takes centre stage with his red Epiphone, to his left sits a hammond organ that Paul Williamson would pawn his soul for, and another more modern organ (well, from the 70s). To the rear is the hammond’s speaker box, the two speakers rhythmically waggling inside the wooden compartment, ready to provide the organ with its signature trembling tones.
We’re missing a sitar and a fiddle. I think the crowd is genuinely concerned. Tiaz strikes up the band on bass, and with that the songs begin. As a complete newcomer to Dungen it’s not a song I recognise, but it’s a song rather than a prog freakout. Unexpected, but it has beautiful fluid elements of jazz drums rolls and breaks, delayed guitars and vocals, black power basslines, you name it ‘cause this is the haze of the summer of love.
Dungen held back the prog wankery with their melodic compositions. It was tight, it made a little too much sense through the murmur of effects and improvisational flourishes and if anything their mystique held up by their instruments, their musicianship, their aesthetic, was a little tarnished by the structure of songs like ‘Panda’ and ‘Du är för fin för mig (‘You are good for me’, a mundane love song if my terrible Swedish can be relied upon)’.
But, after only a few tunes their framework fell flat. Gustav’s flute and ‘Midsommarbongen’ rang out from the PA with its charging formless jalopy giving way to their melodic homage to free love. It continues as the green LED display on Reine’s Echolette meets in the middle, full volume. Gustav has made a good show of his practised hand. Switching easily from organ to singing to guitar to tambourine. His moves are so naturally 60s it’s like Dungen possesses a time machine for their transportation. He dances like Robert Plant.
The crowd, made up of less hippies, more squares than expected cheer every song and often after an impressive solo. Their fascination with Dungen is clear. Its this recreation of their parents’ time and place that holds their gaze. But it’s a spectacle, the audience can’t grasp the free expression and passively enjoy the band. Gustav shields his eyes from the bright stage lights and projectors to ask the crowd if anyone has seen Architecture in Helsinki, a bigger group than the band respond in a way reminiscent of Spartacus. Did they think they might get special treatment? A t-shirt?
I scoured the crowd for a hippie. One person that wore a cheesecloth shirt and paisley, a headband, anything. A boy and his girl sat under the speakers wrapped up in dope and contempt for the establishment. They’re never going to war. They don’t want to cut their hair, but they are the only ones.
Dungen finish with an encore, the crowd cheers a long time for the band to return and are rewarded with songs to round out the two hour set. Dungen stay at the bar to socialise with, gosh! punters! and ignore the old rock cliché of a holier than thou attitude. A good set and a lovely band.
Reine uses an Echolette Klemt – NG 51 S tape delay that he bought on Ebay. He never plays without it.
