Ex Norwegian Take On One of Folk-Rock's Sacred Texts — and Drag It Into a Florida Parking Lot
The Miami Beach power-pop shapeshifters tackle Richard and Linda Thompson's folk-rock masterpiece live from a Pompano Beach brewery.
Ex Norwegian have never been a band to play it safe. Across fifteen-plus years and a catalogue deep enough to get lost in, the Miami Beach power-pop shapeshifters have covered everything from the Kinks to Andy Pratt, always filtering other people's songs through their own fizzing, garage-wired sensibility. But tackling Richard and Linda Thompson's "I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight," the title track from one of the most revered folk-rock albums of the 1970s? That takes a certain kind of confidence, and Ex Norwegian have it in spades.
Their new single captures the band doing exactly that, live at 26° Brewing Company in Pompano Beach on May 29, 2021, in what was one of Ex Norwegian's final Florida shows. Recorded by Satori Sounds and mixed and mastered by Prof. Stoned earlier this year, it's an electric time capsule of a band doing what they do best: taking a great song and making it unmistakably theirs.
The concert footage
The Thompson original is, of course, a masterpiece of restraint: Linda's famously deadpan vocal riding Richard's silver-stringed guitar lines, the whole thing wrapped in rain-swept British melancholy. What Ex Norwegian understand is that the song's core, that restless yearning for a night out, a stiff drink, and some noise, is universal. So they transplant it to a Florida parking lot and let it breathe in a completely different atmosphere. The rhythm section drives the tune with a loose, urgent pulse. The guitars crunch and push where the original shimmered and ached. And vocalist Michelle Grand-Reinkopf finds her own way into the lyric, delivering it with a raw conviction that honours the song's emotional weight while making it feel completely present tense.
The video is a no-frills document: two cameras, low light, a makeshift outdoor stage at the brewery. But it captures something you can't fake: the energy of a band playing for a live audience at a time when gigs were just starting to blink back into existence. You can hear the post-pandemic hunger in every note.
The single also includes "Life," another cut from the same Pompano Beach show. The lineup that night: Roger Houdaille on guitar and vocals, Michelle Grand-Reinkopf on lead vocals, Kevin Sgarro on lead guitar, Giuseppe Rodriguez on bass, and Nicole Marcus on drums.
A spirited, infectious live document that proves great songs only get richer when a good band commits to them fully.
