By Goran Ehren
On November 17, over 50 happy souls gathered at The Admirals Pub and Restaurant for the biannual Evert Taube evening. It was a nice evening with the flood season behind us and not much traffic, so most of us had no problems reaching there on time.
The meeting was as usual arranged by “Evert Taube Sallskapet i Bangkok” (Evert Taube Association, Bangkok). During the Bangkok chapters existence from it’s inauguration in September 1994 the attendance has varied a lot from year to year. Therefore the organizing committee decided for a fresh approach with new ideas for this autumns event.
The focus of these events has always been the singing of Evert Taube’s songs, and this would remain the same for this event. What we (Sune Larsson, Kenneth Radenkrantz and yours truly) decided to do was to add some history and memorabilia to the evening. With the help of our parent organization Taube Saellskapet (in Sweden) we managed to borrow a film about the history of Evert Taube. Part of this film was shown during the dinner. And in breaking with tradition, where all singing had taken place on request from the participants on a first come first serve basis, it now took place in a more guided form. Kenneth had prepared a guided tour through Evert’s life and chosen songs that fit into this context with Eric Helander handling the visual presentation throughout the evening. This was all very much appreciated by the gathered singers. Kenneth, or was it Evert(?), guided us through the evening and the singing.
For the singing to flow smoothly we are always in need of good musical accompaniment. This time we were fortunate to have Lennart Loquist back with us, together with his own accordion, specially flown in from Sweden for this occasion. We all remember how he was the backbone of this event in it’s early years, and it’s good to have him back. On guitar we were now pleased to welcome Johan Hallenborg who provided the perfect comp to Lennart. No wonder that the singing felt easier and sounded more angel-like than in many good years.
To add to the “presence” of Evert this evening’s menu was inspired from what we knew was Evert’s favorite food. Served was a chicken backed with Rosemary, with a small mango salad going with it. As a started we were serve what could best be describes as, taking Kenneth’s introduction into account, as a vegetarian Bouillabaisse(!). Everything tasted nice, just the way we understand Evert would have liked it.
With everyone happy eating, drinking and singing themselves through the evening it finally came to an end after around 3 ½ hours of intense activity. Judging from the mood of the singers we hope that everyone will return in the beginning of March when the spring session of the Taube singing takes place. And you are always welcome to bring more friends along.
Keep singing.
