Review: Jens Lekman @ Mercury Lounge

These are all really good:
Pretty Shoes (mp3)
Black Cab (mp3)
Rocky Dennis' Farewellsong To The Blind Girl(mp3)
(and of course, the classic):
You are the Light (mp3)

Jens Lekman surprisingly packed the Mercury Lounge Saturday night. I’m surprised because not that many people have been talking about him out side of myself and Kathryn. Of course Saturday night at Mercury Lounge is always a wild card.

So, since he has a boat load of songs, I expected him to play a really long set. But no. It was remarkably short, and I guess he even said how he didn’t feel like touring (I was at the bar getting a drink). Well, if he doesn’t like to play live, he at least fooled the audience for the 50 minute set he gave us.

He opened with the some Flamenco-styled song with the repetitious line “We are going to die” …and went right into the Calypso-styled “Happy Birthday, Dear Friend Lisa.” When I wasn’t cracking up at his awesome lyrics, I was really having a blast. He sang one song about a demonstration on New York in 2001, and then followed it with a second song about a demonstration in New York in 2002.

He ended the night walking off stage, standing on the bench to the side, unplugged and unmic’ed… a beautiful version of the song “Julie.” A great end to a show that only left me wanting more.

You can download loads of stuff at the Department of Forgotten songs (such as that Pretty Shoes track above).