Lukas Graham Puts Showmanship First at The Wiltern

Harriet Kaplan

Pop singer/songwriter Lukas Graham didn’t quite strike the balance between showmanship with serious artistry when his band played at the Wiltern. The Las Vegas styled “pop-soul” revue overwhelmed sonically, not allowing subtlety or nuance enter a performance characterized by pounding drums and a blaring three-piece horn section.

The hour-long show included songs from his self-titled debut album, such as “Criminal Mind, Pt. 1,” and the second studio release, “Blue Album,” such as “Mama Said,” “Don’t You Worry About ‘Bout Me,” “Funeral” and “You’re Not There.” The audience cheered and sang along with the tunes.

Graham possesses a strong, emotive tenor, but he delivered his material in a sweeping, exaggerated manner. The high-energy and fast-paced show featured the animated Graham making big broad physical gestures, running around the stage and standing behind the drum riser with his arms reaching upward, smiling and taking in the audience response. His bass player played a dramatic foil as Graham played bandleader – comparable between the interplay between Nils Lofgren and Bruce Springsteen. The band also included a piano and keyboard player.

At one point during the show, the bassist and Graham took their shirts off creating a mini-Chippendales onstage. The performers seemed to enjoy the male bonding, as they jumped in the air chest-bump each other. Showboating aside, Graham does have an interesting story to tell and chatted up the audience with it between songs, discussing drawing inspiration for his songs from his childhood in Christiana, an alternative lifestyle community in Copenhagen.

(Squatters occupied a former military base in 1971 to form a self-sufficient self-governing Utopian community, but the hippy commune quickly descended into a degraded slum of drug addiction and crime – from which Graham is proud to have escaped through his musical success. Graham’s birth name, Lukas Forchhammer, is the only one listed under the Wikipedia’s Christiania page category of “Notable residents.”)  

He also described the love and respect he has for his father, Eugene, a stove repairman in Christiana, who died of a heart attack in 2012. Graham also spoke thoughtfully about the excitement of being a new dad to his baby daughter and expressed gratitude for girlfriend Rillo and her family for their emotional support. Closing out the show with two encores, the upbeat “Happy Home” and affecting “7 Years,” Graham at last slowed down the frenzied pace of the show so the emotional impact and power of his songs was apparent.

Lukas Graham played Wiltern on Nov. 21.