Jens Lekman – review

Jens Lekman. Photograph: Kristin Lidell

This is not just any Jens Lekman show; it’s his 500th to date.  The idiosyncratic yarn spinner has always taken up his perch with such profligacy that what he lacks in studio albums, he certainly makes up for in shows. We’re here to celebrate.

Lekman toasts this momentous occasion with a glass of white wine and makes his apologies, with a glint in his eye, for we’ve had to wait five years for new album, I Know What Love Isn’t. However, any disappointment is eclipsed by his debonair charm and mawkish wit; he’s a smoothie of the highest order and as he strikes up the first chord, our hearts go aflutter.

Full band in tow – wearing head-to-toe black and white – the Swedish crooner flings open the doors to his world and as celebrity encounters are mixed up with tales of heartache and the mundanities of everyday life, he unravels silver-tongued narratives, pulled along and fleshed out by sprightly instrumentation.

Ladling honey-toned, knee-trembling baritone over rich orchestral flourishes, Lekman dedicates his set to the heartbroken. We’re smitten. Even the wealth of couples cosying up down the front couldn’t drag us down.

The new LP chronicles a recent break-up and Lekman skips through candid confessionals like ‘Become Someone Else’s’ ‘Some Dandruff On Your Shoulder’, and ‘I Wan’t A Pair Of Cowboy Boots’ with the oomph of a man ready to dust himself off and try again.

Offering up insightful nuggets like “You don’t get over a broken heart, you just learn to carry it gracefully”, Lekman’s songwriting effects a universal reach, casting a net over his audience with such authenticity it’s impossible not to join him on his journey.

He dips into his back catalogue – built from a glittering array of EPs as well as his three full-length LPs – and swoons over tracks like the tragi-comic clout of ‘An Argument With Myself’ – from 2011’s EP of the same name – ‘The Opposite of Hallejujah’, and ‘A Postcard To Nina’ from 2007’s ‘Night Falls Over Kortedala’.

The regal setting of the Hackney Empire is perfectly suited to this night of sumptuous aural bliss. Jens Lekman may have (unwittingly) shed his mop but his charm shows no sign of diminishing.

For more go to Jens Lekman.