Lights That Flash in the Evening: Jens Lekman @ Sixth & I Synagogue, Washington, DC (10-5-2011)

Singer/songwriter Jens Lekman may, at first listen, seem like a strange Swede. His songs, like "I Broke Up a Fight" and "Waiting for Kirsten," a song about waiting to see Kirsten Dunst at her hotel in his hometown, seem, well, odd. Lekman's songs initially appear as silly musical stories about nothing. But then he brings out a line that just nails how it feels when go through one of the deep situations we all endure at some point while on this mortal coil, and your perception is immediately changed. Lekman covers them all, heartache/hope/love/longing, and in the end, be it from his silly stories or his perfectly capturing the human emotion in verse, you don't feel serious or melancholy, you feel uplifted .

My Washington City Paper piece will be up here later today. See more photos from the set here.