Words & Photos By: Thai Tran 

 

Lykke Zachrisson, better known by her stage name Lykke Li, loves Los Angeles.  Maybe it’s the sunny beaches, maybe it’s Hollywood and its deeply rooted music history, or maybe she knows that she’ll always have some of the most die-hard fans here in the City of Angels. She’s played L.A. a total of five different times this year, which includes some of the city’s most famed musical landmarks – Amoeba, Greek, Wiltern, El Rey.  Another L.A. landmark got crossed off the list last Monday night as she graced the Art-Deco stage of The Fox Theater in Pomona, her sixth and final L.A.appearance of the year on her extensive Wounded Rhymes tour.

 

FIRST AID KIT 

With a plethora of opening acts along the tour, the last leg would be accompanied by fellow Swedes First Aid Kit, consisting of sisters Johanna and Klara.  They were a surprise to the crowd who seemed to have trouble calming down and riding their wave of folksy dream pop.  I on the other hand, thought they were amazing.  It was as if a young Joanna Newsom and Jenny Lewis formed a group and moved to Sweden.  They played mostly tracks off their 2010 album The Big Black & The Blue and a couple songs of their upcoming 2012 album The Lion’s Roar, which included a head banging title track that got a couple people bumping and shuffling.  They were refreshingly charming and played off each other well. Be sure to check out their new video “The Lion’s Roar.”

 

LYKKE LI 

Lykee Li didn’t come on until well into the night.  She’s been to L.A.enough times to know our traffic so maybe it was a premeditated decision on part of the late-comers.  Just as the crowd was beginning to get restless, the lights dropped and the screams and yells cut through the air scattered with hands.  There was a belated entrance through the fog and smoke and elegantly blinding light show and finally she made her way to the stage.  She opened with something new and something old with “Jerome” and “I’m Good, I’m Gone.”  The rest of the set included many of the crowd favorites off the new album as well as Youth Novels.

 

Highlights included First Aid Kit coming out and playing “Silent My Song” as well as a couple covers.  She did The Knife’s “Silent Shout,” which was an awfully good song if you have the right light setup, which of course she did.  She also did “Unchained Melody” – yes the Righteous Brothers’ song from Ghost.  The night ended with “Unrequited Love” with some audience participation and our Swedish songstress was off.

If you’ve missed her this time around, don’t worry.  Not too many things are a sure-thing anymore, but you can your bottom-dollar that Lykke Li will be back in L.A.in 2012.  She seems to have a special connection with the city and her fans here, or she really does just like our sunny beaches.

 

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[fgallery id=1 w=600 h=400 t=0 title="Lykke Li"]

 

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