Kyle Dean Reinford

Lykke Li, Wildbirds & Peacedrums @ Webster Hall, NYC -pics

February 3, 2009

Kyle Dean Reinford

LET’S get this lot out of the way right at the start: sex, saunas, suicide. And there will be no more mention of Ingmar Bergman, Greta Garbo, Ulrika Jonsson, the humble herring, and last and definitely least, Sven-Göran Eriksson. Lykke Li is Swedish but already in her short but promising pop life, she’s fed up talking about her homeland.

“Why does everyone ask me about Sweden?” she says in the bar of a London hotel en route to her Scottish debut. What she probably means is: “Why does everyone resort to Swedish cliché and want to know if all my sisters are blonde, whether it’s better to give than to receive regarding birch-twig beatings, and the name of my favourite Abba song?” Actually, I was interested in the Swedish characteristics she liked and disliked, but Lykke Li isn’t playing. “Yes, we’re obsessed with sex and death and, yes, all my girlfriends are slim and beautiful,” she says with a chuckle, closely followed by a frown. “But I’m banned from saying anything negative about my country now.” By the government? “No, by me. When I’ve said bad things I’ve been attacked and I didn’t like that. So, as of today, no more Sweden.” [Scotland on Sunday]

Wildbird and Peacedrums opened for, and later joined headliner Lykke Li for some songs at Webster Hall in NYC last night (2/2). Lykke put on a great show that included covers of Kings of Leon‘s “Knocked Up” (like she’s done before) as well as “Can I Kick It” by A Tribe Called Quest (a song she once actually played WITH a member of ATCQ). Tonight (2/3) they do it again at Music Hall of Williamsburg in Brooklyn. More pictures and the full setlist from last night, below…