On the Bumbershoot schedule this year, Australian-born, LA-based singer/songwriter Lenka is the closest thing to a pop star on the roster. When Lenka is at her best is when her songs are ridiculously catchy, upbeat and fun. When she played at the Triple Door at the beginning of the year, I wrote:

She’s lovely and her songs are cute and poppy – completely crush-worthy. She came on stage about 8:30 and opened with “Trouble is a Friend” – and playing with a full, four person backing band and in the warm confines of the Triple Door, the song sounded huge.

…

If this show wasn’t sold out, it was very close and the crowd seemed to be very receptive to her pop songs and several people sang along with the choruses to “Trouble is a Friend”, “The Show” and “Don’t Let Me Fall”….

As with most new artists, they don’t have a huge catalogue to draw from but this night Lenka played every song on her album, a b-side and two covers. Of the two, I preferred her take on Modest Mouse’s “Gravity Rides Everything”. It started out with slow, sparse instrumentation – a very hushed melody – over her fragile harmonies before slowly building up to a bigger, expansive sound. The other cover was the final song she played, M. Ward’s “Vincent O’Brien”.

Here’s a video of Lenka performing her single “The Show” on “Jimmy Kimmel Live”:

[video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKsoB2NLl3c]

{Lenka plays Bumbershoot at 8:30pm on the Northwest Court stage on Monday, September 7.}

Photo of Lenka by Kirk Stauffer from the TIG Flickr Pool.}