Jens Lekman at EartH, London (Live Review) ^Featured

Jens Lekman

EartH

Words & Pics by Captain Stavros

Something Borrowed, Something Bleak

It’s been more than two decades since Jens Lekman first drifted onto our radar — back when both he and we had hair, and the internet still felt like a series of whispered secrets rather than a shouting match. One of those secrets arrived in the form of a grainy clip: Lekman, unfussed, sardonic, wedged between the fuzz in the back of a police van. It was enough to hook you. It just took 22 years for the story to come full circle.

Fast forward to a brisk Saturday night at EartH — a venue that feels less like a gig space and more like an H.R. Giger-designed shuttle hangar dropped into Dalston — where those paths finally crossed. Cavernous, a little cold, faintly surreal: the perfect setting, as it turns out, for Lekman’s peculiar brand of emotional theatre.

This wasn’t a standard tour stop. The evening hinged on Songs for Other People’s Weddings, a collaborative project with author David Levithan, who appeared intermittently throughout like a narrator slipping between dimensions. Opening the set with spoken word — unconventional, a touch disarming — Levithan set the tone for a performance that refused to sit still.

Visually, it was somewhere between a wedding reception and a fever dream. The band looked like they’d raided a jumble sale en route: grooms, ushers, a rogue cowboy. No cohesion, yet entirely cohesive. Off to one side, a guitarist tuned up beside a conjoined mannequin, its arm threaded eerily through a jacket sleeve — the kind of detail you might miss if you blink, but once seen, impossible to forget.

Lekman himself eased things into motion with a series of cooing nonlexical vocals — delicate, precise, quietly magnetic. It’s always been his trick: drawing you in not with bombast, but with something subtler, stranger. His songs live in the in-between — the emotional grey areas most artists sidestep — and here, that sensibility felt magnified.

There was a tension running through the performance: the band, visually stiff and almost statuesque, while their sound moved with fluidity and warmth. Clarinet, saxophone and flute weaved through the arrangements — a reminder of how rarely these textures get their due in live indie shows. Meanwhile, lyrics danced between sincerity and mischief, casually dropping references as jarring as “the human centipede” into songs ostensibly about love and marriage.

And then there’s Lekman himself — the quiet one you don’t quite trust. The kind who, if a chair suddenly collapsed beneath you, might be found moments later with sawdust on his cuff and a hacksaw tucked out of sight. There’s a playfulness to him, but also a sense that he’s always one step ahead of the room.

Levithan would reappear at intervals, prompting the crowd — at one point urging everyone to shout where they’d come from. The response was chaotic, global, human. His musings veered philosophical: “last” as an adjective, “last” as a verb. In the context of weddings — and by extension, relationships — it lingered in the air. End, or endure?

Backlit, Lekman cast long, wavering shadows across the amphitheatre walls, his silhouette dancing high above the aisles as if the venue itself had become part of the performance. And vocally? Time has done nothing to dull him. If anything, his voice has deepened, gained a resonance that anchors even the lightest moments.

After a two-hour first half — yes, really — the shift was inevitable. Ceremony gave way to party. Jackets were slung over mic stands, drinks appeared in hands, the band loosened. Lekman announced it plainly: the wedding was over, now came the celebration.

What followed was a run through the back catalogue that felt both generous and inevitable. For the die-hards, it was the moment everything clicked into place. Songs that had lived in headphones for years finally breathed in the room — and didn’t disappoint.

By the time the encores roll around, the atmosphere has tipped fully into something communal. Lekman shares a story about a Japanese band covering one of his songs — he’d been enjoying it, blissfully unaware, until the slow realisation dawned that it was his own work being reflected back at him. There’s something quietly profound in that: the rare chance to experience your art without the weight of authorship.

It brings to mind Scott Walker, who once said he’d listen to an album exactly once after finishing it — loudly, intensely — because he knew he’d never return to it again. A kind of self-imposed distance between creator and creation. Back to Lekman, and you get the sense he’s lived in that same space for years, only now catching a glimpse of his music as the rest of us hear it.

We’re reminded, too, of a hazy encounter with Bat for Lashes’ Natasha Khan — somewhere between tequila shots and poor decisions — asking her what it felt like to create the very music she loved dancing to. The answer? Lost to the night, somewhere between the bar and The Dolphin. But the question lingers here, in this room, as Lekman stands centre stage, hearing his songs come back to him from a hundred different voices.

The night closed, fittingly, with ‘Black Cab’ — a request bellowed early and answered late. As Lekman softly strummed, the crowd took over, singing it back to him in full. A quiet, collective handover. Performer to audience. Creator to creation.

Multiple standing ovations followed, though leaving proved harder than applauding — bottlenecked exits forcing everyone to linger just a little longer. Not that anyone seemed to mind. The performance had already settled in, refusing to be shaken off too quickly.

Some gigs entertain. Others stick. This one — strange, funny, thoughtful, quietly subversive — did the latter.