The Copenhagen Report

Mofo Steel at Boutique Lize

Copenhagen has an astounding capacity to genuinely surprise. This is perhaps the biggest strength of the city. Then again, there are quite a few strengths of the place, which I've mentioned in a few articles on this blog in the past.

So wandering along Istedgade last night turned out to be a good choice - in fact, it was something of an instinctive feeling, an intuition you could say, that lead us there. I could almost a little voice in my head at the beginning of the night saying 'even though it's Wednesday night and there's always some interesting music at Cafe Tjili Pop on Wednesday, skip it and go out in Vesterbro tonight instead!'.

I don't know what went on at Tjili Pop, but Vesterbro indeed proved quite a more than worthwhile diversion on an otherwise quiet Wednesday night.

The evening began in Boutique Lize (okay, actually it began with a drink at Darling across the street, but it reeeealy began at Boutique Lize). There we discovered, much to our surprise, that a band was playing. This was the first time I'd actually seen a band playing there. In my mind, the place is only a cocktail bar, but apparently they are trying to branch out a bit.

The band very quickly caught our ears - it was a Danish one that we'd never heard of called Mofo Steel.

And what a band they were - 5 fantastic musicians, clearly with a wide range of influences, and a style that would be impossible to pin down to anything other then fantastic songwriting. I can only hope that they keep at it - they're the kind of band you want to see go far - it would otherwise be such a tremendous waste of potential. A extremely tight and immensely talented ensemble from the keyboards (often on the wonderful Hammond organ setting), through the bass player, guitarist, drummer and lead singer.

Their next gig, we found out, is at Loppen in Christiania on Sept. 27 if you're curious. I'm certainly considering checking that one out after what I heard last night. If I was from a record label and had stumbled into last nights show at Boutique Lize unaware, I would have been crapping my pants in excitement at the prospect of the discovery.

But the night was not over.

Following the show, we were wandering along Istedgade discussing where to go next (it was still not even 11) when we heard plenty of noise coming from a little clothing shop called 'Dig' (a shop that I had never noticed before) and people spilling out the door onto the sidewalk. As we discussed whether or not to check it out (of course sheer curiousity would compel us to) I noticed that none other than the suddenly famous (in Denmark) Trentemøller was behind the decks in this tiny place. We wandered in, handed over 20 kroner for a couple glasses of punch (the only drink being served), and proceeded to dance along to frantically energetic Trentemøller DJ-set (accompanied on the decks by another female friend whose name I never found out) for the next 90 minutes. You really can't ask for anything more fantastically spontaneous then that.

Two surprises in one evening - and both within 100 meters of each other. Now that's Copenhagen at it's best.


the sight and sounds of an unexpected street-level party on Istedgade...


the man of the hour - Mr. Trentemøller