Asobi Seksu @ 7th Street Entry

On Friday night I ventured out to First Ave's 7th Street Entry to see Anna Ternheim, Loney Dear and Asobi Seksu perform (btw, congrats to our contest winner Megan). Things started off late as the bands apparently had car troubles, but as soon as sound check was complete, Swedish singer/songwriter Anna Ternheim jumped on stage. Backed by Loney Dear's band, Anna sang a much-too-short 6 song set. This was my first time seeing Anna live and I had hoped to see her with a piano, as "Tribute to Linn" is one of my favorite songs of hers, but alas, Anna stuck to her guitar and microphone for the evening.

Although certainly cogent in performance ability, Anna seemed a bit distant, but in the way that suggested that she was unsure about what type of audience she was getting. There was a cautious degree of "will they like me?" present on her behalf, which was somewhat odd given the fact that Ternheim has had huge success in her home country, winning Best Newcomer in 2004, getting nominated for the Grammy-equivalent of Best Female Artist, Best Lyricist and Best Songwriter in 2005 and winning both of those titles in 2006. Nevertheless, Anna sang beautifully and even broke out "What Have I Done," complete with prerecorded strings. One of the highlights of Anna's set was her Loney Dear-borrowed vocal backup, Malin Stahlberg. It felt like identical twins were singing; their voices blended together so beautifully it was a borderline divine experience. I began to wonder if Loney Dear should start keeping tabs on their bandmate, cause I would completely understand if Anna decided to kidnap Malin for future concerts/recordings.

Next up was fellow-Swedenite Loney Dear (aka Emil Svanangen), who I fell in love with when Em and I saw them live at the Cedar Cultural Center a few months back. Friendly as always, Emil made adorable jokes and comments to the crowd, calling the sparks that the microphone occasionally gave him as "microphone kisses." Loney Dear played one well-crafted propulsive song after another, dotted with Emil's characteristic falsetto chanting and energetic teetering. The big moments of the night included the audience sing-along moments of "The Meter Marks OK," Emil's self-conducting with a mallet during "Violent," and the microphone/amp-free intimate performance of "In With The Arms." Loney Dear played a much longer set than Anna and they even bought themselves 4 more minutes at the end to play another song, much to the fans' delight. When they left the stage, one could not help but notice that their set had made the atmosphere one of optimistic cheer and warm fuzzies. As always, Loney Dear is a fantastic band to see live.

The shoegaze fizzy rockdeath of Asobi Seksu was up next, which entirely transferred that warm fuzzy feeling into a need to dance/headbang all your troubles away. Now I know this is always commented upon, but the Asobi Seksu lead singer, Yuki, is literally no taller than an eight year-old. The girl is tiny, yes, but at the same time, I wouldn't ever say that to her face, cause she's comes across as a bad-ass mother who don't take no crap off of nobody. When they got on the stage, she said, "We just drove for 30-something hours to get here, close to two days, so we're pissed off." The band decorated the stage with their own blue holiday lights and strobe lights (which were so intense that I'm pretty sure they gave me epilepsy) and kicked things off with "New Years." I quickly realized that Yuki really liked to headbang and sing with as much hair on her face as possible as I struggled to take photos of her. I moved to the back of the venue because the sound was too loud and clattering for my taste but soon after the band started to play more ethereal tunes like "Meh No Mae" and "Layers," and I could finally hear Yuki's clear voice shine through. A different crowd seemed to settle in by that part of the evening, one that wanted to rock and get lost in the shimmer of the grime. By the end of the set, I realized that part of the attraction of seeing Asobi Seksu live is that you get to escape the world for a little while inside a wonderful cacophonous cocoon.

It was an interesting evening and a great concert, full of folk-pop female singer-songwriter sound to multi-instrumented crafted sprawls to fizzy electric guitars and angry crunchy drums. Even though I wouldn't have put these bands all together, I highly recommend checking them out if they hit your town, cause it was a solid night of entertainment.