Show: The Sounds
Date: March 22, 2014
Venue: Club Nokia
City: Los Angeles, CA
The Sounds
Photos by Nicolas Bates
Written by Dan Sinclair
Don’t worry, sweet readers, your dedicated writer wasn’t going to let a little LA Clippers traffic Downtown get in the way of his coverage of Sweden’s poppy retro-new-wave phenomenon The Sounds. I even braved the company of the Los Angeles metro’s shadiest subway clientele all the way from Universal City (that’s the red line to the blue line for all you keeping score at home). Why? Because I love you all. You’re welcome.
Club Nokia was full of mostly young ladies clapping and dancing around in high anticipation of the Maja Ivarsson-fronted Scandinavian indie rockers. Before long, the lights went down and a big black banner was raised. It did take some doing to get it straight, but finally they did and Miss Ivarsson took the stage along with the wife-beater donning guitar player Félix Rodríguez, bassist Johan Bengtsson, drummer Fredrik Blond and keyboard dude/second guitar player Jesper Anderberg. The young crowd screams. Glass breaks somewhere.
The Sounds kick things off with “No One Sleeps When I’m Awake.” Maja wears tiny little short shorts with a leather jacket. She shakes her hips from side to side as she sings “I don’t think you know what it’s like/You should be careful what you wish for.” And though everything seems to be going right for the fans in attendance, all is not perfect as Maja yells to the side of the stage for more vocal volume at the end of the song. But when the song ends, the young audience explodes with appreciation.
And the appreciation is returned from their favorite lead singer. “I missed you guys. Did you know that?” And they must’ve known because the cheers get even louder. Anderberg jumps up on the drum set and starts to clap his hands over his head. The Sounds fans take their cue and return the steady beat with force. At end of “Song with a Mission,” Rodríguez offers his guitar to the Sounds’ faithful fans and almost loses it as dozens of dainty manicured hands grab at it.
Maja continues with the Los Angeles love. “We love you, truly from the bottom of our hearts. We fucking love you!” Then she lights a cigarette as she demands applause from the audience over an electronic intro. The crowd obliges and everyone enjoys “Shake, Shake, Shake.” By the end of the song, Maja starts to shake, shake, shake herself in an odd freak-out of a dance that I couldn’t imitate if I tried a million times.
And truly fitting as “Something to Die For” begins, the energetic leading lady gives the crowd a nice, pleasant giant cloud of smoke to breathe in. Never knew it, but apparently second hand smoke is pretty popular around these parts.
Perhaps the smoking catches up to Maja when she sit downs on an amp for the beginning of “24 Hours.” She eventually gets up to sing the song, but rests on the drum set for the percussion-heavy intro to “Dorchester Hotel.” But she’s shortly up and about again, stretching out those vocal chords as the fans pump their fists in the air for the chorus: “And we pray/bless our hearts/back to the abnormal life.” Maja makes it known that she wants to see everyone in the air for this one and soon everyone is jumping up and down, singing along.
It’s then that Maja says, “Fuck, man, we’re just warming up. You ain’t seen nothing yet!” And she’s right. On “Painted by Numbers” she demands “I want you motherfuckers to sing for me. Bitches, follow me!” They do. Over the cool piano for “Wish You Were Here,” Maja is happy to report that she’s “A little drunk, a little sweaty” and that she likes it.
Next is “The Best of Me” followed by “Weekend,” because according to Maja, “Every day is a weekend to me. Enjoy it!” She does start to stumble over the opening lyrics for “4 Songs and a Fight,” but after she yells out, “Fuck it,” it’s business as usual and everything’s rocking again. She even does a nice, almost-slow-motion crotch rub at the end to add an exclamation point.
And the night keeps going with the band pumping out “Emperor,” “Take it the Wrong Way,” “Living in America,” and “Outlaw” before finishing the set with “Ego.” And then there’s the encore of “Tony the Beat,” “Rock N’ Roll,” and finally “Hope You’re Happy Now.”
Braving the traffic was worth it for all to hear all the sounds of The Sounds. Especially when a certain audience member got a ride home and didn’t have to get back on the scary subway.