Sondre Lerche brought a pop-tastic conclusion to my week of concert-going at the Paradise, as Aimee and I joined the other eighty-odd people not watching the baseball game to see his second show at The ‘Dise (can it be your web address if no one calls it that?) in six months. The last time around, he was accompanied by his band the Faces Down, but this time around, he played most of the show alone, with just his shiny Gretsch and his ailing voice, constantly plied with Throat Coat.



Despite the fact that his voice wasn’t at full strength, he played a great set, stripping down the lush arrangements found on his records with his precise, clean guitar parts. He writes great melodies, and his songs have some of the best ESL lyrics I know. He played eight or ten songs on his own, and then was joined by the thoroughly underwhelming opening band The Golden Republic, who backed him up on six or so more songs. It was a strange arrangement, which makes me wonder: were the bands coerced by Astralwerks into playing together? Did the Faces Down drop out, forcing him to get a new backing band? Or was he so smitten when he saw them in concert he thought they’d work well together? Somehow I don’t think so. Anyway, they were better suited to backing up things like “Sleep on Needles” (still one of the best pop songs of the last five years) and “Virtue and Wine,” his attempt at mixing two cultures: “Brazil, and punk rock.”



He’s changed a lot since I first saw him early last year; it’s like we’re watching him grow up before our very eyes. He’s getting bigger, his voice is getting deeper, and he’s looking more like a rock musician (and Heath Ledger, actually) and less like a scrawny, sun-deprived Scandinavian young singer-songwriter every time. All in all, it was a great show: classic songs, played by a talented performer who enjoyed interacting with the attentive, enthusiastic crowd. Chalk another one up for the Paradise, the best venue in Boston. My only question, though, after three shows in a week: where’s Paradise Guy? Should I be worried?