(Music so happy, you'll be pooping rainbows for weeks. © 2009 Benjamin Luk.)
Lenka is either your thing or it isn’t. The sugary sweetness of her persona can be exhausting at times, like if you’re a parent already and your neighbour decides she’s going out of town for a week and could you look after her adorable daughter for her while she’s gone pretty please with a cherry on top. But if you’ve ever been trusted with the care of someone else’s child – and for the record, I’m the last person on Earth you’d want looking after your kid – you’d understand how rewarding that experience can be. I mean, c’mon; kids are like puppies. You can take one to the park and use it to pick up chicks.
There’s something about the Aussies that thrive on large cardboard cutouts of random shit. Sia did it first, now Lenka’s following in her footsteps. Giant paper-product mushrooms were taped to mic stands and Lenka’s trademark stoned owl was glued to a paint stirrer and stuck onto her keyboard. Gadgets and gizmos aplenty; miniature pandas, pigs and frogs occupied every horizontal surface within Lenka’s reach. You hear a lot about artists “setting the stage” for their music. This was just that, only more Etsycentric.
In spite of her decided girliness, Lenka emerged onstage in an understated purple dress, more befitting of a secretarial type than some kid liable to get high snorting lines of chocolate milk. Surprisingly, Lenka is already in her early 30s and though I tried hard to forget that, I just couldn’t get caught up in the childlike fantasy world that so much of Lenka’s marketability depends on. She seemed less than carefree that night at The Media Club, shushing the somewhat inebriated crowd stage right and scolding them for “chatting really loudly”. To be fair, Lenka apologized to the audience and redeemed herself by joking, “Busted by teacher,” in that adorable Australian accent of hers.
Lenka played a number of new songs, more sophisticated than anything from her first album and clearly marking her progression towards musical goals loftier than Old Navy commercials or 30 seconds in a Grey’s Anatomy episode. “Pull Me Apart”, though still very much a pop tune, combines her commercial pop style with 50s Motown and jazz influences, mostly thanks to her amazing horns and keys player, Danny Levin. (I’m even inclined to say that about 30% of Lenka’s success has to do with his contribution to her album, though no one knows who he is.) Other highlights include her a cappella rendition of “Like A Song”, performed over eerie radio signals recorded during WWII, and a blasphemously danceable cover of The Zombies’ “The Way I Feel Inside”. However, other gimmicks fell flat, like the weird witchiness she tried to evoke during another new song, “Force of Nature”.
It wasn’t until “The Show” and “Dangerous and Sweet” that Lenka finally latched back onto the girliness she was trying to go for all along. Surprising us all by demonstrating that she is indeed a very competent trumpet player, then finishing on sheer whacked-out childhood glee for “We Will Not Grow Old”, Lenka showed us all that you can still act like a kid well into your adult years.
I just wonder how long she can keep it up.
There’s something about the Aussies that thrive on large cardboard cutouts of random shit. Sia did it first, now Lenka’s following in her footsteps. Giant paper-product mushrooms were taped to mic stands and Lenka’s trademark stoned owl was glued to a paint stirrer and stuck onto her keyboard. Gadgets and gizmos aplenty; miniature pandas, pigs and frogs occupied every horizontal surface within Lenka’s reach. You hear a lot about artists “setting the stage” for their music. This was just that, only more Etsycentric.
In spite of her decided girliness, Lenka emerged onstage in an understated purple dress, more befitting of a secretarial type than some kid liable to get high snorting lines of chocolate milk. Surprisingly, Lenka is already in her early 30s and though I tried hard to forget that, I just couldn’t get caught up in the childlike fantasy world that so much of Lenka’s marketability depends on. She seemed less than carefree that night at The Media Club, shushing the somewhat inebriated crowd stage right and scolding them for “chatting really loudly”. To be fair, Lenka apologized to the audience and redeemed herself by joking, “Busted by teacher,” in that adorable Australian accent of hers.
Lenka played a number of new songs, more sophisticated than anything from her first album and clearly marking her progression towards musical goals loftier than Old Navy commercials or 30 seconds in a Grey’s Anatomy episode. “Pull Me Apart”, though still very much a pop tune, combines her commercial pop style with 50s Motown and jazz influences, mostly thanks to her amazing horns and keys player, Danny Levin. (I’m even inclined to say that about 30% of Lenka’s success has to do with his contribution to her album, though no one knows who he is.) Other highlights include her a cappella rendition of “Like A Song”, performed over eerie radio signals recorded during WWII, and a blasphemously danceable cover of The Zombies’ “The Way I Feel Inside”. However, other gimmicks fell flat, like the weird witchiness she tried to evoke during another new song, “Force of Nature”.
It wasn’t until “The Show” and “Dangerous and Sweet” that Lenka finally latched back onto the girliness she was trying to go for all along. Surprising us all by demonstrating that she is indeed a very competent trumpet player, then finishing on sheer whacked-out childhood glee for “We Will Not Grow Old”, Lenka showed us all that you can still act like a kid well into your adult years.
I just wonder how long she can keep it up.
* * * * *
Special thanks to Malcolm Croome of Sealed With A Kiss and Hayley Zalm, my dedicated note-taker.
Also, if you'd care to see Lenka's Vancouver set list or a photo of Lenka and I together after her show, you know what to do and where to click.
Also, if you'd care to see Lenka's Vancouver set list or a photo of Lenka and I together after her show, you know what to do and where to click.
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