By Neil Durham

WORTH A LOOK?: ****

WHEN?: Wednesday 3 April 2024, tour runs through 24 August 2024

SETLIST: Same Again (For Love); Backbeat; Ray-Bans; Please Look At Me; Used To You; Bye Bye Baby; Highs And Lows; Pretty; Come Over; Strawberry Dream; Love You Like That; Heartbreak In The Making; Brightsider; Somebody

‘You know I play Norway all the time?’ It’s Dagny’s 1st London gig this year and she understands people have come a long way to see her and so she wasn’t expecting someone to shout ‘Norway’ when she asks this north London audience where they’re from.

• Read on for reasons including everything we know about Dagny’s new single

This is our 1st gig since the clocks went forward and it’s Dagny’s 1st of a European tour which includes the Isle Of Wight Festival and Bestival in Dorset.

She opens with Same Again (For Love) a Britpop-ish song of the week for us last year, and what is immediately obvious is the adoration this sold-out crowd has for this singer songwriter from far away Tromsø in northern Norway.

It’s so packed this 75-minute set makes for a slightly uncomfortable watch but it does remind of the joy of summer festival sets to come and for that we are truly thankful.

Dagny Norvoll Sandvik’s last long player Strangers/Lovers was an album of the month for us in 2021 and we said of it. ‘Highlight is the penultimate Bye Bye Baby which is an uptempo banger on a par with With Every Heartbeat which Robyn would do well to release right now about determination to move on which offers: ‘Now I just wanna leave you behind’ on repeat.’ 

She plays Bye Bye Baby midway through her set here, it gets all the crowd dancing and is an utter showstopper.

This is the 1st time we’ve ever seen Dagny live, she’s backed by her band and immediately we appreciate what a fine, distinctive and occasionally glacial vocal she has.

She gives a live debut to new single Strawberry Dream which builds beautifully on everything she has released before and has a pop sensibility which should see it played on radio as spring quickens silently into summer.

Heartbreak In The Making was a song of the month for us in 2023 and its evocation of The Verve’s Bittersweet Symphony proves an appropriate late high here.

Dagny and her band were clearly delighted to be back on the road for this 1st gig of 2024 here and we envy all those who have the joy of seeing them on their travels throughout Europe this spring and summer with the promise of even more terrific new music on the way.

• Main picture via Facebook courtesy Dagny Tickets
• Have you seen a Dagny show before and what did you think of this 1? Let us know what you thought in the comments below
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