The Sounds at Roseland Ballroom, 9.17.09

It's like a real arena show! Except that it's at the Roseland Ballroom. And the place is maybe 1/3 full. Sweden's best export band, The Sounds, who I keep seeing at random one-off dates or festivals, actually have a whole complicated stage set-up.

Set List and Comments:

Crossing the Rubicon: Jesper has an electric baby grand. In addition to his usual keyboard. And the synth. Like, a quarter of the stage is Jesper. They start with Rubicon so that he gets a solo show-off piece.

Dorchester Hotel: Maja is wearing mostly the same black bustier and high-waisted hotpants as the last time I saw her, but has added a black track jacket and gold chains. Maja Ivarsson does Jay-Z.

Queen of Apology

Hit Me

Mine for Life: Maja is inspirational. She really is. I feel like she's the last of the old punk ethos. Yeah, she's hot. Yeah, she can sing. But that's part of who she is, it doesn't make her. She'll look goofy, she's genuinely thrilled to have people singing along, she trips and falls and laughs. She's not afraid to get messy. And that makes her the prettiest.

No One Sleeps When I'm Awake

Midnight Sun: I need to stop going to Sounds shows. Something bad always goes down. I've seen them five times. The time the guitarist from Morningwood broke his arm, the time I almost got into a fistfight and ended up crying by the bar, the time a dozen of us were literally crushed by 3OH!3 fans and couldn't escape, and now a girl is having a shrieking, crying bad trip in the middle of the pit. They called the EMTs. This doesn't even count the time my friend Shana almost came to blows at an LA show.

Rock n Roll: How come a disco ball always makes you feel like doing The Bump.

Seven Days a Week

Night After Night (slow version)

Four Songs and a Fight

Be My Lover: I can never tell who I love more at Sounds shows: the gay boys who come to get down, or the straight guys who bro down. Both are so heartening. A Sounds show is a really amazing cross-section of the whole world. There are couples in their 50s and 60s, guys who came alone in business suits to dance awkwardly, a pair of punk lesbians making out, a whole lot of bros from Long Island, the diehard hipsters. And everyone's just losing it. The Sounds are kind of a cult act in America, but their cult is so much fun!

Hurt You

Beatbox

The Only Ones

Painted By Numbers

Living in America

Ego

The set proper ends with Jesper and Felix wailing on some electronic drums for 90 seconds, and then we stand around in ethereal music like welre in the title sequence from an early Dr. Who. When they come back, the bass is up so high that I can feel my earplugs vibrating. They close, as always, with dance anthem Tony the Beat. Then back to our boring lives of not being Maja Ivarsson. Ho-hum.