Peter Bjoring and John

Peter Bjorn and John
The Phoenix – 05.06.07
Rating:  3/10

Peter Bjorn and John dropped into the Phoenix last week for an early date on their North American tour in a performance which can only be described as monumentally boring.  The trio, who recently won a Swedish Grammy for their hit song “Young Folks”, a catchy little ditty featuring fellow Scandinavian singer-songwriter Victoria Bergsman of The Concretes, failed to impress what appeared to be a sold out crowd at the downtown venue.

The band, only seven or eight shows into their severely hyped North American tour appeared lethargic and statue-esque on stage.  One can only speculate on the reason for such lousy stage presence—a shy sensibility in tune with their ever-so-cute-and-quirky image?  A band tired of playing the same repertoire of stripped-down indie pop tunes on the dawn of the second leg of their tour?  Some inexplicable desire to channel a shoe-gaze performance aesthetic minus half a dozen distortion pedals?  Or perhaps the ink has barely dried on their diplomas from the Brandon Flowers school of stage presence.  Whatever the cause, the crowd seemed fantastically underwhelmed as the pitchfork hipsters stood stone-straight in solidarity with nary a ripple in the crowd.

The contrast was even more apparent to anyone who had read interviews with the act in anticipation of their arrival on this side of the pond.  The band proudly proclaimed that an eager fanbase should expect something different from their live act, as they had a proclivity for playing sets as a straight-forward power-trio, adding a pinch of “punk” to their otherwise not-so-punk sound.  Imagine everyone’s surprise when they came out sounding less power-pop than just straight-forward PB&J—a facsimile of the bare-bones, sparse, overdub free Writer’s Block.

The result was a show sounding so similar to the album, coupled with a complete lack of crowd interaction, that it prompted at least one drunken spectator, in what was sadly the highlight of the entire evening, to wonder aloud if perhaps they saved the overdubs for the live show.  Needless to say it garnered few laughs among the uber-serious hipster crowd.  The heckling, a normally unwanted feature at almost any concert, did this time have the fortune of providing an intermittent source of entertainment throughout the night.

REVIEW BY: JAMES O’SULLIVAN

Add comment May 24th, 2007