Goodness me. What a refreshing young character Sondre Lerche is. The doe-eyed Norwegian singer is creating music unlike anything a 21-year-old has any business making in this day and age. He'd be more at home singing alongside Sinatra back in the day than on any contemporary stage. To make this gig even weirder, it's one of the first live music shows to be held at The Drink, which appears to be opening its doors midweek to concerts instead of the usual top forty/electronica/hip-hop dance club stuff. Merely a couple weeks before this show, I was a witness to a shooting outside the club that saw one bystander get a bullet in the leg. I had my headphones on already and was just walking to a nearby bus stop from a local gig, heard four shots ring out, and got thoroughly startled by the sudden noise. I brushed it off as some kids playing with firecrackers or something, even when two guys came bolting up the side road to hide around the corner, but within two minutes, more than a dozen police cars and emergency vehicles were on the scene, blocking the road off and stringing up yellow crime scene tape all over. And now this meek, gentle fellow was in the same club to play his own happy set? Huh?

The last time I'd set foot in The Drink, it was a few years ago as an extra in a Rodney Dangerfield movie that I believe went straight to video. My Five Wives or something like that. Basically, I got to stand around all day in dark-hued club clothes, being flamboyant with a gaggle of girls, holding an hours-old Caesar with a limp piece of celery in it, and watching three oiled-up, over-tanned, beefy male strippers in neon thongs packed with coin rolls (not socks… coin rolls) strut their disturbing stuff on a catwalk for about ten hours. Oh, and did I mention Rodney Dangerfield was there in a Zorro costume? It stayed on him thankfully.

Okay wait, this is supposed to be a review about Sondre Lerche. The room had changed a bit since those days. Now, there was just a stage - no catwalk, no strippers - and a lot of empty space filled with all manner of hipsters and college kids. I perched myself at the top of a small stairwell beside the stage and waited for the magic to begin. The thing that became quickly apparent about Lerche is what an apt comedian he is. He speaks with a soft Norwegian accent, and has a great command of the English language, only mixing up a tiny bit of grammar, but maintaining a deep vocabulary that I wouldn't have expected. He has a smile… more of a smirk really… on his face at all times while he speaks, his enormous blue eyes sparkling in the stage lights as he chuckles to himself during his soliloquies. His manner of speaking makes it seem like he's just barely nervous - mostly at home under the spotlights, but just with a smidge of public-speaking jitters to keep him human.

The first thing he talked to us about was his own name. He went through this big speech about how no one seems to be able to get it right, even though it's not really that hard. He then slowly said it out loud for us twice and then asked us to say it with him. Then, he said to make it easier on everyone, he'd named his band Faces Down (the title of his previous album). Faces Down then came out on stage and joined Lerche for much of the rest of the set.

As he began to play, I noticed how much more his live show rocks than his records. That doesn't mean the records are bad - far from it - but they're much more jangly-loungey. Live he kicks up his heels a bit, drums along with his hands, even shouts a time or two. When he's not singing at the mic, he's dancing around jovially in his black velvet jacket, shuffling towards and laughing with his bandmates and scoping out people in the crowd. He played a lot of songs from his new album, Two-Way Monologue. As he began to play some of the material from Faces Down, he introduced it by saying that, "we're going to go way back, like three or four years. Wayyyyy back." Early in the show, he played a song, the name of which escapes me, that had a lyric in it that was something like do you have enough to fill a page? After playing that song, Lerche stopped and addressed the audience again. "You have had the pleasure of hearing [the last song] tonight. It didn't fit with the mood of the record, so we left it out! Just totally uncompromising. Out." Everything he said used so much emphasis on certain words, and he used his hands in broad, sweeping motions to make his point. So great to watch. The crowd was in stitches.

During the song "Dead Passengers," where the faces down lyric pops up, Lerche, while still playing, stopped singing to ask the audience what his band's name was at just the right time. The audience shouted out "Faces Down!," and the song continued without a hitch, save for the band erupting in giggles. After they finished the tune up, Lerche explained, "I like to combine pop songs with a quiz in the middle, just to keep you engaged. It's not good when the audience is passive. I'm sorry. It won't happen again." Later, as he introduced his band, he pointed off to one side and said, "To my left… left? Right? Which is it? I don't know; I'm from Norway." And the moment that left Lerche speechless, when one mysterious voice from somewhere in the dark room shouted, "Take off your jacket!" His face became shocked and wide-eyed, as he appeared to dig for some response to that, but he didn't come up with one.

He launched then into a song about a lost love, which he introduced by saying that there was a point in his young life that he thought he'd like to get married. It didn't happen, and he figures he should be happy about that. The song was called (appropriately enough) "It's Over," and after it was… well… over, he said "all right here we go, enough with the universal depression. We now have a 100% happy song, a swing tune, to get you in the mood." Suddenly, someone's cell phone rang in the quiet room, while everyone was otherwise riveted on Lerche's speaking. The band was already beginning the song ("On The Tower"), and Lerche didn't skip a beat, "You might want to get that phone." It rang again, and still not phased, he continued, "well, somebody should get it."

He continued to be engaging, even as people shouted out, "You're so cute!" and "I love you!" which he mostly responded to with sheepish smiles and knowing bats of his big baby blues. The audience bopped about, and so did the band, keeping it light and continuing to laugh at each other whenever they caught each other's eyes. Lerche did eventually take off his jacket, for his encore. The song "Two-way Monologue" is a very Morrissey-sounding tune - solid. And still, up to the end. Lerche rolled with all the foibles of his show. Near the tail end of the set, he spoke up, saying, "This is the most embarrassing thing I…" His voice cracked strangely here, making him jump back a bit in surprise at the weird noise he'd just made. He blinked a few times as the crowd giggled, and continued, "oh well, that was the most embarrassing thing, making pig sounds. But on nights when I don't sound like a pig, this is the most embarrassing thing. " He went on to tell us that he had merchandise for sale in the back corner of the room. That's the most embarrassing thing for him - asking people to look at and maybe buy something from him. He verified that he would be going over to sign autographs as well as soon as the show was done. "Someone is making a living selling my records over there. There are t-shirts as well. If you don't like the music - which I totally respect, by the way - you can wear it instead."

He made a nervous chuckle then, finished the show, and as promised, wandered quite quickly over to the merch booth to meet fans and sign things. As he walked past me on his way over, he was consuming a banana (he had said something about drinking orange juice while he was on stage - healthy guy?) and had his head tilted down, those giant glittery eyes widely surveying the room from below his sweat-dripping bangs swooped across his forehead. And there he stood alongside the person who was making a living selling his CDs, armed with a Sharpie marker and happily speaking with anyone who came by to meet him. He was still there when I left, after picking up a pair of pins to add to my oh-so-hipstery self (hah…). Class-act, this one. He's a grand entertainer and a stunning musician, and he still has so many years left to perfect his craft further! Sondre Lerche for president! Governor! Chair!

Elsewhere

By Andy Scheffler
Photos : Andy Scheffler
Published : June 12, 2004.