All Swedish popped out

Just came back from a Jens Lekman concert at Neumo's, but first I need to tell you about the weird warm up act -- the Honeydrips. Note the plural. In actuality, just one guy. And a MacBook Pro with iTunes. Which was his band, and his backing vocals. He did have a guitar which he picked up, but never actually played. He was okay, he had a sort of New Order-type sound at the beginning, then it was kind of all over the place... I think I was distracted, watching him intently to see if he was actually going to pluck some strings on that damn guitar.

Jens though was awesome. The main draw of his songs (aside from their 50's - 60's infectious pop vibe) is the sweet lyrics, the story that he tells in each song. Even more so that, during the set, he would occasionally provide even more back story to fill in the gaps -- e.g. Postcard to Nina, in which he describes how a lesbian friend convinces him to beard for her when visiting her family in Berlin. The audience was clapping along, even whistling... Jens displayed an understated showmanship that you appreciated as something a little out of the ordinary; through his story-telling you definitely felt more connected to the guy on stage than you might otherwise.

Oh, another point in his favour: Wikipedia claims he moved to Melbourne in early 2008 :).