concert-o-rama

Went to the Jens Lekman show at the Old Music Hall on Bascom Hill the other night. Opener Honeydrips was dull at best, despite his album's high rating on the 'fork. For the first half of the set he stood with (what we later learned was) Jen's guitar hanging in front of him, he eventually put it down unplayed. Mostly he just stood nearly-motionless in front of the microphone while music streamed out of his powerbook and through the theater's speakers. Granted, the music was for the most part pretty good (until he started singing songs in Swedish that sounded a lot like the early work of Kenny G), but it was really boring to witness live. The bat fluttering around the ceiling generated way more excitement from the crowd.

Fortunately, Jens and his extremely talented, all-female backing band, rocked. Another example of going from songs that sound *good* on the album to sounding INCREDIBLE live. Jens' voice is impressively strong for all its sweetness, and he never fell flat, even when pushing the higher octaves. Plus, it was just so fun- the crowd loved it, the band danced and clapped and encouraged audience participation. At the end of the nearly two-hour set, Jens stood alone before the microphone and said, "I'm not going to sing any more songs on stage, I think it's been so perfect and beautiful just as it was; but if you want to hear any more songs, just come up to me out in the lobby and I'll sing it for you face-to-face."

Blitzen Trapper and Fleet Foxes are coming up next Tuesday. Should be a great start to a month filled with awesome shows.

Sadie didn't end up getting adopted this weekend- I'm picky. But she's meeting someone tonight that I have a good feeling about.