Paint A Ring On My Middle Finger

Peter Bjorn and John @ Mercury Lounge 1/29/2007
Let’s Call It Off / (I Just Wanna) See Through / The Chills / Paris 2004 / Far Away, By My Side / Start To Melt / Big Black Coffin / Young Folks (with Victoria Bergsman) / Amsterdam / Objects Of My Affection / Up Against The Wall // Teen Love / I Don’t Know What I Want Us To Do / Collect, Select, Reflect

Peter Bjorn and John “Paris 2004” – Yesterday wasn’t a very good day for me. My laptop is currently away being serviced, and with little to no warning, the hard drive of my desktop died, taking a considerable but not entirely tragic number of non-backed up files from the past four months with it, effectively making my life as a professional writer/daily blogger very difficult until at least tomorrow. (After then, my life just becomes very tedious for a while, but that’s a lot better than doing all my work from an internet cafe.) So seriously, THANK GOD (or at least some dude named Ewan) that I got to see this Peter Bjorn and John show — it was so good, so entertaining, so revelatory that I think in the future, I might only remember that part of the day.

There’s nothing particularly flashy about Peter Bjorn and John’s live show, but they perform with such effortless charm and grace that their good songs become great, and the great songs become magical, especially the sweetly romantic “Paris 2004” and the hit “Young Folks,” which they performed with an additional percussion player and the Concretes’ Victoria Bergsman. (A sidenote, though somewhat related to the quality of her performance/stage presence: As I left the venue, I made eye contact with Bergsman for about a second and it was like staring into the sun.) The audience was extremely enthusiastic, and there seemed to be a sense that their success in the United States was inevitable given the quality of the show, the single, the album, the realization that Peter Moren is a total heartthrob, and the fact that they have some serious industry muscle behind them, which is sort of hidden, but very fortunate. Before seeing their show, I would have been skeptical about their chances, but now I’m just waiting to be proven wrong. (Click here to buy it from Amp Camp.)

Elsewhere: Brooklyn Vegan has some photos from the show.

Also: The Born Ruffians opened up for PB&J, and they were quite good and much better than I remember from their EP, but I’m going to have to come back to that again later when my computer situation is sorted out. Just thought I’d mention that, if just to make sure that I don’t forget to do it sometime next week.