Loney Dear

Sometimes, out of misfortune, wonderfully unexpected things will occur.
That was certainly the case at Schubas last weekend for an XRT Big Beat
Show with Swedish band Loney Dear.

On record, Loney Dear is one Mr. Emil Svanangen.  His last two discs,
“Loney Noir” and the recent “Dear John” were both recorded in his
bedroom studio as well as his parent’s basement while playing all the
instruments himself. The records are pop gems made all the more
impressive by his solitary recording process.

When he takes Loney Dear on the road though, it expands to a five piece
band.

This is what we expected Saturday night. Only problem was the misfortune
I alluded to at the beginning.

On Friday, the band’s van broke down somewhere in Canada. Not able to
get parts in time, Emil thought about canceling the show. Then, he
thought again.

In true “The show must go on” fashion, he reluctantly left his mates to
deal with the van and booked a one way flight from Toronto to Chicago
arriving at Schuba’s just in time to save the show.

Before the show he was worried the audience would be upset by the
unannounced solo acoustic performance but the crowd was supportive knowing the
personal effort he made to get to town.

He may have been missing four band members but they were replaced by a
200 person choir. Without any prompting, the crowd, who knew the songs,
broke out numerous times to provide background vocals.
Picking up on this, Emil became more confident taking even more risks.
At one point he stepped away from the mic to sing with just his naked
voice filling the room. You could hear a pin drop.

Emil played maybe 15 songs and even though the titles were scribbled on
a folded set list, the show still had the kind of spontaneity and give
and take that made us feel this was a truly unique and special
performance.

Hopefully Emil will hook back up with the band to continue the tour, but
for those of us at Schuba’s, we’d be ok if the part for the van had to
be part on backorder.