Live DC: Jens Lekman @ The Cat

October 26, 2007 by Christina  Send to a Friend

Kanske Är Jag Kär I Dig (Maybe I Am in Love with you)

DC, I am proud of you. After attending several low energy head-nodding filled concerts, the Jens Lekman show was a delightful surprise. Not only was the Black Cat filled (how did all these people find out about the soft spoken Swede?) but everyone was SINGING ALONG and actually expressing emotion.

What was that about? It was about amazing times. Now, I don’t know if every Swede in DC showed up for the performance (I heard a few Jävla bra! from the audience) or if Jens has infiltrated the musical ears and hearts of DC. Either way there were tons of people at the show, more than I expected. And it was beautiful.

If you are not familiar with Jens Lekman, here is what you should do. Run out into the street, push whoever is in your way and go buy his CD somewhere. I don’t even know where it’s available but go find it. Night Falls Over Kortedala, his second full album was released worldwide on October 9th.  Jens, like Jose Gonzalez, is another musical import from Göteborg, Sweden. He plays guitar based pop with a slight touch of romantic melancholy. He has a clear deep voice that is reminiscent of Nico from the Velvet Underground or some other wispy and deep vocalists like The Smiths or Belle and Sebastian. His music is pretty and catchy and everything that music really should be. His use of samples and covers only adds to that tingling feeling of nostalgia you get when you hear his stuff.

Now I can’t give a real review because I didn’t catch the show in its entirety. When I entered, he was on stage, wearing a plain white shirt with some embroidered red flowers. With him were six women and one man clad entirely in white, some sporting little white caps. With saxophone, trumpet, accordion, violin, drums, the recorder and more, he happily bounced and smiled as we were all mesmerized. He has a child like charm to him, innocent and cute.

Jens concluded the main part of his performance with his new single “Friday Night at the Drive in Bingo” a saxophone driven pop melody that kind of made me want to do the twist or at least be in one of the 1950s dinners with roller skate girls or, I guess, a drive in Bingo (Swedish people really like Bingo). He came back for an encore but ended up playing three more songs because the audience was just putty in his hands. His accompanying band came back on stage for one song and then he performed two more solos, just him and his guitar, to our extreme pleasure.

The final song “Pocketful of Money” was indeed the pinnacle of the night. It started off with us snapping our fingers in beat accompanying the guitar and ended in a singing bonanza that made my heart soar. Not only did the every single person at the Black Cat sing along but we sang in a round with Jens. That’s right a round. The words “I’ll come running with a heart on fire” will forever be emblazoned into my brain from now on. Although we obviously wanted more, Jens simply stated that THAT WAS THE BEST VERSION OF THE SONG HE HAD EVER DONE, and didn’t want to ruin the moment by fucking up another one.  It was sincere and the crowd agreed. 

There you go DC. We finally showed our true colours.

(proof of love: cale actually changed his myspace profile status to “gay” last night after seeing this show-ed)

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