Love In Stockholm Rocks Lizard Lounge Again

Love in Stockholm just completed their Thursday night, June-long residency at the Lizard Lounge in Cambridge, and after seeing them for a third time, they just keep getting better and better.

During their residency, shows has been broken up into two sets.  Last night, lead singer Charlie Rockwell informed listeners that if they wanted to hear Love in Stockholm, they'd have to wait until the second set, because for their first, they covered The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band from front to back.  Their cover of "When I'm Sixty-Four" was, for my money, the best song of the night, kicking up the tempo but still interpolating the original song's sound late, which was pretty damn impressive.  They put their own spin on every song with their unique style mixed with Rockwell's flawless wailing vocals.  I never second-guessed one of their arrangements -- Too busy jamming out and drinking some Golden Monkey, but we'll get to that later...

The second set was a mix of everything they have to offer, starting with the opening track off their first album, "The Buzzard." They featured a couple new songs that will hopefully appear on their new CD coming out at some point this year.  This was vintage LIS at it's best.  Harmonies were killer, the crowd was constantly getting into the music, clapping and dancing right along with the beat, and each song was sharper than the last.

One of their last songs of the night was the band's anthem, "Allston," which nearly brought down the house.  And no LIS review is complete without a shout-out to Evan Sanders, the simultaneous trumpet and keys player.  During "Beauty Fades, Pt. II," I was trying to figure out who was doing that insanely low harmony, and I've come to the conclusion that it must be him, but whether it was or not, you're not going to find many better musicians.

Wondering why I brought up Golden Monkey?  The guys came out for their second set, half featuring navy blue t-shirts with the Golden Monkey logo, a beer from Victory Brewing Company.  The beer is 9.5%, and packs a pretty serious punch, not that it was going to stop drummer Jesse Humphrey from admitting he had six...

If you haven't gotten down with LIS yet, check them out on their website, follow them on Twitter, or listen to them on Spotify.