Our good friend Miss Modernage has been obsessed with Sondre Lerche for about 5 years, if not longer. So it was natural for us to call her when we heard that Mr. Lerche was playing for the TriBeCa Film Festival to see if she could cover the show for us. Check out her review and photos after the jump.

One of my favorite things about the TriBeCa Film Festival is that it’s a relatively low-key event. Basically the only time I remember it’s going on is when I see people walking around with those big stupid purplish badges slung around their necks as if to say, “No, I don’t know how to blend in, and Yes, I would like to get mugged.”

Another thing that fills me with glee is the fact that at least once a year a slew of free music events and movies are held delightfully close to where I live (hooray downtown Manhattan). So although I pass on a lot of the stuff going on, I do get to take advantage of some of the great happenings that go on–a prime example being the TriBeCa Film Festival Music Lounge at the Canal Room.

I was thrilled to see that their lineup for Wednesday included a set by TMA fave, the Norwegian wunderkid, Sondre Lerche, who was slated to play from 5-5:30 pm.

Now, you must understand, I love early evening shows because that means I can get home in time to really have that quality “me time” I crave. (And by “me time” I mean “time for me to watch bad reality television shows on Bravo.”) But the thing I hate about early shows is that if they start before 6:30pm, that means I’ll be dashing out of the office like a mad woman, racing against the clock to get to said concert, as was the case on Wed.

I was getting some on-the-scene updates from my friend Matt over at the Music Slut, who filled me in to the fact that everything was running a little late, and at 5:20 there was about 10 minutes until Sondre was going to be on, so I got my running shoes on and made like a banana.

As I’m literally running from the subway station to the venue, dodging sluggish-moving tourists and sketchy homeless dudes by that pizza place on the corner of Canal, I was huffing, “I’m… too… old… for…. this… shii….pffftttss.”

I manage to slide into the Canal Room just a few minutes into Sondre’s set–coming in during “To Be Surprised,” a favorite song of mine from the Dan in Real Life soundtrack which Sondre wrote.

Wearing a green plaid shirt, a red LEGO-block necklace, jeans, and a pair of gray/pink Pumas, Sondre blasted through some other faves, both new and old, such as “My Hands Are Shaking” (DIRL) and “Tragic Mirror” (Phantom Punch).

He rounded off the night with a quite punky version of “Sleep On Needles” (from his first album, Faces Down)–loudly tapping his foot to keep the beat and add a rhythmic element to his solo electric guitar sound–then he segued into a spirited version of “Two Way Monologue” (Two Way Monologue, obvs.), which, as always, called for increased amounts of hair whipping and (endearingly) spaz-attack-worthy guitar playing by Sondre.

By 6:15 I was out of there–with enough time to go home and eat a little something before heading out to a movie screening for a film about street/underground artists called Beautiful Losers.

Oh, and I managed to get home in time to watch Top Chef too! SCORE!

PS- I HATE SPIKE!

Tags: laura young, sondre lerche, the canal room, the modern age, tribeca film festival

This entry was posted on Friday, May 2nd, 2008 at 8:13 am and is filed under Live Shows. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.