noise++ with matty & derek

This week I was able to see a couple more shows. This week was definitely the lesser of two weeks when compared to last week. The bands I intended to see were a little disappointing but through them I found a couple bands that I would have never found before.

Anna is a solo, acoustic, indie-folk Swedish singer/songwriter that opened as a “Special Guest” for El Perro Del Mar and Lykke Li. The fact that she was opening was pretty interesting after I checked out the three band’s LastFM pages. She was listed as having 2.4 million listens, while Lykke Li had 650k listens and El Perro Del Mar had 950k listens. Regardless of stats and statistics, she was really good. Her voice sounds better live than it does on her recordings. Also her non-singing Swedish accent is really hot! I was not expecting much from this “Special Guest” but instead of found an awesome new band for my chill-out playlist.

(Clip of “Anna Ternheim - To Be Gone [0:38 min])

Before this concert I had heard of but I hadn’t actually heard anything from Lykke Li. For some reason I had a completely unfounded idea that she wasn’t really someone I would be interested in. With this in mind, when I heard her stuff I was pleasantly surprised. Out of all the bands this week, she was definitely the most entertaining. Her music (at least most of it) is upbeat and fun, which fits perfectly which her similarly styled stage presence. Lykke Li was another fresh addition to my music repertoire this week.

(Clip of “Lyyke Li - Im Good, I’m Gone [0:39 min])

As opposed to the first two bands, I had heard a little bit from El Perro Del Mar before I saw the show. She is really hit or miss for me. I really like the songs Dog and God Knows but I wasn’t into much more than that. A friend of mine really likes El Perro Del Mar so I thought it would be fun to go to her show anyways. My opinion of her live performance was pretty similar to my opinion the albums I had listened too. She played both the songs I really liked and I thought they were great. Her other stuff was just a little too slow and uninteresting for my tastes. My friend on the other hand thought it was amazing. So if you like all her stuff, I’d bet you’d like her live.

(Clip of “El Perro Del Mar - Dog [0:39 min])

Tokyo Police Club is up there in my list of favorite bands. That is at least if we are talking about their first album. Their latest album Elephant Shell is pretty good but isn’t even in the same league as their first album. It has two songs that are first album worthy (Tessellate and Your English Is Good). That being said, having at least one full album of wicked tracks under their belt I was super excited to see them live.

Sadly I was let down. First off, we got their late (which is normally not an issue because they had two openers) and they had already started. We only missed a song or two but we quickly got in the middle of the crowd ready to jump around. They played mostly their second album with some of their first album sprinkled in the set list. This left the audience standing around for most the show with intermittent jumping around for their well known songs. This led to a very high highs and low lows kind of show.

To top it all off the entire set was only 50 minutes (including the 5-10 we missed). Although I’m sure this wasn’t the band’s decision it left me feeling ripped off. I was left with a saddened and empty walk home at 10:30. It makes me feel bad writing negatively about a band I love but this show was just not good. I hope they pick it up next album and I will definitely try out their live show again.

(Clip of “Tokyo Police Club - Your English Is Good [0:43 min])