by Roy Scopazzi
I have never photographed a wedding.
It’s never interested me and the training to do so would probably be extensive, so photographing Jens Lekman at The Independent wax poetic about a fictional wedding singer that mirrors his own experience as one is probably the closest I’ll get. It helps that people in the audience and several people on stage were dressed up as characters from the book that his latest album is tied to (I got the memo too late and didn’t dress up). Writer David Levithan who worked on said book frequently took the stage to read passages from a sticky noted copy to give context to each of the songs and the various actions the performers did. They end up doing a Cliffsnotes version of the book in the hour and 15 minute long set (which was followed by a 35 minute encore) so it gave us incentive to actually purchase the book at the merch table.
That encore (which felt more like a second set) started off with fan favorite “The Opposite of Hallelujah” and 6 other songs from a mixture of his past albums. It was a great way to balance out the more structured first part with this medley of fan favorite that finished off the show quite well. I especially appreciated the final song which was an solo acoustic version of Into Eternity.
Jordan Patterson opened up the show with a wonderful set from her newest album, The Hermit. Her expressions and emotional range really set her apart from your run of the mill singer-songwriter, and I’m glad I found out about her at this show.
Leave a reply