Lykke Li’s Goth Confetti

Lykke Li’s Goth Confetti

Sad music can be a hard sell at festivals, when people are there for a good time, but Lykke Li took a devastatingly sad breakup album, last year’s I Never Learn, and sold it like it was top-shelf arena-pop, which it sort of is. Her whole set was just fantastic — icy and controlled and powerful. Her voice is huge, but more impressive than that is the way she projects a heavy intensity all the time — hair sweat-plastered across her face, a slash of glitter on her cheek, a look on her face like she could fight the whole audience and walk away without a scratch on her. The songs from I Never Learn sounded better than I’ve ever heard them, to the point where I want to spend a whole lot more time with that album, and she was ballsy enough to cover Drake (“Hold On We’re Going Home”) at a festival that Drake is headlining. Her stage set was all beautifully designed darkness — sheer black curtains hanging from the ceiling, huge plumes of smoke-machine fog, black-clad wraiths doing backing-musician duty. And even her big finale had some beautiful darkness working for it: An explosion of black confetti filling the air.