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First Aid Kit at Kulturzentrum Schlachthof, Wiesbaden, Germany (30 Nov).

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Tonight’s First Aid Kit show at TivoliVredenburg in Utrecht, Netherlands:

https://www.instagram.com/p/BqyAxQCgPdS/

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A first aid kit

So why did they call themselves ‘First Aid Kit’? On the face of it, this wouldn’t seem like a great choice. To be perfectly honest, if all I knew about First Aid Kit was their name, I would guess they were some third rate pub band. Of course, things might have been a lot worse, they could have chosen a name like ‘Knee Bandage’ or ‘Sticking Plaster’! All the same, for anyone seeking to become successful, ‘First Aid Kit’ is not going to be on your shortlist of names for a band! Even from the point of view of Google searches, it’s a pretty bad choice – you end up competing with companies selling medical equipment!

So how did this all come about? Well, the story goes that Klara came up with the name by randomly opening a dictionary. However, there seems to be rather more to it than just that. Yes, she did find it in a dictionary, but the reason the name was chosen was that Klara wanted her songs to make people feel better.

The whole thing is well summed up in an impassioned speech Klara made during a recent US concert: ‘We started this band because music was a saviour to us. It was there for us when we needed it and, you know, ‘First Aid Kit’, I mean, it’s as cheesy as f***, but, you know, it’s the truth, it’s what we want to be for people.’

So it turns out that ‘First Aid Kit’ is more than just a random band-name, it represents the whole essence of who the Söderberg sisters are, and they’ve stubbornly resisted any pressure to ever change it!

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Here’s a video I found on YouTube of a young Klara Soderberg singing in a school concert. Although she isn’t actually named on the video, the distinctive voice is unmistakably hers (the video also happens to be listed as a ‘favourite’ on FAK’s YouTube channel). Klara couldn’t have been much older than about thirteen at the time. The song is ‘Hallelujah’ by Leonard Cohen. The footage is of rather poor quality, as it appears to have been shot by a fellow pupil on an old mobile phone. However, in spite of this, the talent shines through!

After Cohen died in 2016, First Aid Kit put together a tribute concert, and one of the songs they performed was ‘Hallelujah’.

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You know you’ve made it when your songs start appearing in car adverts! Car advertisers are looking for evocative music that conveys their image of what it would be like to drive a particular car. First Aid Kit have provided the backing music for several of these commercials.

Their cover of the Simon and Garfunkel classic ‘America’ was adopted for this Volkswagen advert from 2017:

 

Their cover of Willie Nelson’s ‘On the Road Again’ was used in this Volvo commercial:

 

First Aid Kit’s best-known original song ‘My Silver Lining’ ended up in this Renault commercial.  The advert, which appeared on YouTube, seems to have generated more interest in the song than the car!