Lenka played (Le) Poisson Rouge in Greenwich Village on Wednesday, July 15th. The venue was filled and the crowd was engaged from the moment the concert started. Lenka started with “Blue Skies”, a song from her new album, which she also performed during the encore, but with a twist. She had the audience choose a different style in which she would transpose the song. She gave them a choice between: jazz, country, hip-hop, bossa nova and reggae. The fans cheered and reggae was the winner. The second song that she played was unceremoniously interrupted by a person’s phone ringing followed by said person actually answering it and having a conversation. Lenka was a sport about it, making a joke then continuing with her performance. She played a slew of her hits at the show, including “Heart Skips a Beat”, “Trouble is a Friend”, “Unique” and one of her biggest hits, ” The Show”. She also performed “Go Deeper”, a song in which she wrote about her now husband. In between her songs she joked about how almost all of her songs are extremely happy, which is the reason why I adore her music.Her show was very intimate despite the large crowd. Lenka shared stories about her songs, her inspiration while writing them and even drew us in with cult like imagery about how her pregnancy was and her song about her child growing in her womb. Everything was light and fun though and the mood was always one of happiness. She even let us in on how she calls her bandmates her “Goslings, my Ryan Goslings”. Added to the set list was the song “Free”, which was requested by her fans. She also had the opening act, Nick Howard, come on stage and they performed a song that they had written together. She ended the show with the title track from her new album, “The Bright Side”. Lenka introduced each band member and one at a time they exited the stage until she was the only one on stage, singing and playing piano. In the last moments she graciously walked off stage, still singing and the crowd singing along with her. The show was great and I left filled with happiness and love, a true sign of great music.
