Lykke li - Tripod 16/04/2011

I must admit I spied the table of good looking people before I knew who they were when I walked into Green 19 on Saturday to meet my friends for a quick pre-gig dinner. I tried not to look but there were at least four or five tall, blonde ridiculously attractive males. 'That's Lykke Li' my friend whispered. Craning my head around in my most subtle attempt I saw the pretty little Swede nursing an esspresso amid these chisled Scandinavian models, I mean band members. Everybody at their table was dressed head to toe in black. As they all got up to go, slinking out in a sea of leather and dirty blonde hair I couldn't help be reminded of the Buffy episode (nerd alert) when Xander became part Hyena, and accumulated a posse of sexy, bad, cool people. Skulking around in black, being all... cool 'n' stuff.

Turns out this was all part of a bigger plan. Lykke Li's stage in Tripod is theatrical, eerie, slightly menacing and very black. With long black drapes, smoke and a whole-lotta drums. Why have one sexy drummer when you can have two.

Lykke Li is gorgeous, dressed like a vampy witch, but in a good way and occasionally disappears behind the drapes, reappearing dramatically banging the symbols by her side. She's a confident performer and a slick little dancer but her new album is full of much slower, sadder songs than before ('Sadness is my boyfriend'-Aww, bless) and are somewhat drowned out in this venue. At times the levels of chat border on embarrassing.

'Most people scream and shout at this part' she teases before one song, and the crowd kick into gear a little. There were many having a great night however, the guy next to me knows all the words to every song and nearly has a conniption, jumping up onto his friends shoulders for the hit song 'Get Some'.

While I am not a huge fan of her music it was a nice and sultry gig that hovered somewhere between fun and dark but perhaps would've been better served up in a smaller venue or with a more focused audience.