Peter, Bjorn, and John
5/8/7
Empty Bottle in Chicago
Okay..first off, I love my Swedish pop! And because of that, when tickets went on sale for PB&J, I bought them immediately before the show sold out. And when they added a second show, I bought them immediately as well because I couldn’t help thinking how much I would love to see them twice (adding also the fact that each set had a different opener.) I’d been listening to both Writer’s Block and Falling Out for awhile and of course loving every minute of the glorious tender voices and melodies. In a way, it reminded me oddly enough of the way I feel when I first heard early Magnetic Fields songs or just a Swedish version of Voxtrot at times.
What I really didn’t expect was for Peter, Bjorn, and John to rock out as much as they did. I was prepared for a much greater element of pop twee and, in a way, I was a little disappointed at first. To put it honestly, their first set was not so good. They seemed ill prepared to handle their own material. They were sloppy with the chords and forgot some of the lyrics to a couple of songs and had to start over. Even though the sold out crowd was ready to lap up every moment and chord progression, they seemed to be doing a half hearted job of it and it was easy to feel disillusioned with their music because of it.
Fortunately, their second set let those songs seek out their greatness fully. It was almost as if PB&J were just running through a sound check on the early show. Though the setlists were roughly the same for both sets, they played a longer set and encore for the second one and seemed more at ease and comfortable. They didn’t have to start songs over and they had a better stage presence as well. I was glad I stayed late but a part of me wished I hadn’t seen their earlier show. The highlight of both sets was not surprisingly “Young Folks” with Heather D’Angelo of Au Revoir Simone backing Peter Morén up vocally instead of former Concretes lead Victoria Bergsman. (Having heard Victoria live, there really isn’t any replacement but I think Heather did a good job and there was a good chemistry between them). Last, PB&J get extra credit for reworking a Concretes cover of “Teen Love” and meshing it so perfectly with The Undertones song “Teenage Kicks.” Too bad John Peel isn’t around to hear it.
setlists:
