First Aid Kit's Royal Albert Hall Encore: Covering Dolly Parton in Tribute to the Late Country Icon

Before the final encore song, Klara Söderberg said just one sentence: "This one's for one of our biggest heroes." As the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra's strings slowly unfurled, the First Aid Kit sisters began singing Dolly Parton's 1974 classic "I Will Always Love You" — and the show at London's Royal Albert Hall on the night of September 29th ended with a tribute to the country music legend who passed away last month at age 80.

This was one of two UK exclusive shows for First Aid Kit, with the Swedish sisters performing their 2014 album "Stay Gold" in full alongside the 65-piece Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra. It had been a full 12 years since they last graced this stage, a few months after the album's original release.

During the show, Klara spoke about how First Aid Kit had always insisted on acoustic instrumentation before making this album, until they finally decided to bring in orchestral strings for "Stay Gold." "So we said, 'screw it, let's do whatever we want,'" she joked before performing "Waitress Song." The first set closed with "A Long Time Ago," with the two sisters seated at the front of the stage as piano led the way before the orchestra joined in.

After a brief intermission, the second set brought a string of career-spanning hits old and new. They covered Simon & Garfunkel's "America" and recalled performing the song in front of Paul Simon himself at the 2012 Polar Music Prize — often dubbed "the Nobel Prize of music" — awards ceremony. "I kept thinking he might just turn around and walk off, I'd had five cans of Red Bull and my legs were shaking so bad," Klara recalled. Johanna added that although Paul Simon looked "totally unapproachable" at the time, he ended up giving them a standing ovation.

During "Emmylou," the entire venue lit up with phone flashlights.

News of Dolly Parton's passing last month added an extra layer of farewell to what was originally meant to be a celebration of the album's twelfth anniversary. First Aid Kit isn't the only one paying tribute to her recently — Taylor Swift dedicated her Video of the Year award at the VMAs to Parton, calling her "the ultimate showwoman"; U2 also revealed that their new album's track "Torn" features Parton's final recorded vocal performance before her passing.