In releasing Songs for Other People’s Weddings in September last year, Gothenberg singer-songwriter Jens Lekman provided a concept album inspired by his many years of performing as a wedding singer. Thus, this current tour in support of the album is giving us the rather novel entity of a ‘concept gig.’ Lekman and his four bandmates on bass, drums, keyboard and a rotation of sax, clarinet and flute are all donned in the wedding appropriate attire of smart trousers, shirts and tuxedos, while an extra tuxedo-sporting gent occasionally appears in between songs as a ‘wedding narrator’ who reads passages from a book.
The book in question in a piece of autofiction that shares its name with, and was an accompaniment to, Lekman’s latest album. During a first half wherein the album is performed in its entirety, the narrator interjects five times to outline the story of a man called ‘J’ and a woman called ‘V’, the two lovers struggling to navigate the tricky terrain of a long-distance relationship between Gothenberg and New York City.
The night’s opening tune, the aptly titled ‘The First Lovesong,’ features an intro wherein the recorded version’s use of orchestra is gorgeously captured here with a duet of clarinet and keyboards. Lekman’s dainty, fingerpicked guitar gives backing to his high-pitched croon and whimsical-come-melancholic lyricism. ‘A Tuxedo Sewn For Two’ – amusingly, its literal image is captured by the bass player’s tux being stitched to an on-stage mannequin – features a skipping keyboard riff and bursts open into a power-pop chorus.
The format of the book readings betwixt the album’s songs, while sometimes resulting in a too-on-the-nose quality in regard to the song’s themes, work well in unravelling the narrative and offering up musings on the nature of romantic love. While it wasn’t clear to me in the moment whether or not the book was wholly biographical in nature – though ‘J’ may well be a thinly-veiled pseudonym for Lekman himself – the fact that it apparently isn’t makes it an effective and interesting choice, rather than a cloyingly precious addendum to Lekman’s songs.
‘I Want To Want You Again’ – performed as a male-female duet between Lekman and his keyboard player – references the long distance impossibility of “an ocean between us” and includes neatly melancholic warbles of flute. The charmingly chirpy ‘Wedding in Leipzig’ captures the lovelorn agony of awaiting a lover’s text reply (“to wait is a lover’s fate”), but, via a lyrical cast of characters, evolves as an overly sprawling three-songs-in-one effort clocking in at around ten minutes.
Lekman’s general style is that of romantic, whimsically worded indie-pop in the mould of his influences like Belle & Sebastian and Jonathan Richman, but there is a significant diversion in the dance-tinged Europop of ‘On a Pier, on the Hudson.’ The keyboardist heads centre stage, pirouetting like a spinning top, and the night goes momentarily Disco as the venue’s mirrorball gets a brief outing.
As the narrator takes to the stage for the final time, the matrimonial theme is continued with show’s first and second halves being compared to that of the wedding “ceremony…and the party” respectively. ‘The Opposite of Hallelujah’ – from 2007 breakout album Night Falls Over Kortedala, a number one album in Sweden – is an irresistibly hooky pop song, and the tune’s notoriety is evidenced in several nearby audience members mouthing the words to their gig pals. Though we’re into the show’s non-themed second half, weddings have clearly so informed Lekman’s writing that we also hear 2017’s ‘Wedding in Finistère’; it’s another blast of jaunty guitar pop with Lekman duly bouncing up and down while strumming guitar chords.
In fact, it’s a second half that maintains a consistently upbeat tenor. ‘What’s That Perfume You Wear?’ utilises a funky bassline and again fuses Lekman’s indie pop approach with a danceable disco beat. The night ends on a sensitive note – sensitivity, one suspects, the trait that largely informs Lekman’s artistic vision – as he dedicates ‘A Postcard To Nina’ to “anyone who is going through shit in their life right now.” It’s another a strong representation of the prettiness found within Night Falls…, a simple but lovely two note xylophone-esque keyboard part gives way to another characteristically exuberant pop chorus.
Lekman’s overseeing of all that is matrimonial is both a charming and rare experience of a live show with a thematic thread.
Scott Hammond
