It was a case of bums off seats, smiles on faces last night in The Sugar Club where Swedish popstress Lykke Li cemented her potential in front of an Irish audience.

Normally, The Sugar Club reserves its music events for the kind of genres that don’t require a dancefloor: folk, ambient electronica, shoegaze, acoustic or some downright theatrics like tonight’s Friday the 13th special – The Rocky Horror Picture Show. With the exception of the Sassy Sue club night, State has never seen the token small dancefloor in front of stage used until Lykke Li came along.

You could sense the collective consciousness of the sold out crowd’s overwhelming need for Lykke to be as good as everyone is telling us. State included. There was no need to worry as she came onstage with her superb 3 piece band (including an outstanding drummer) and proceeded to bash a collection of cymbals along to ‘Dance Dance Dance’ with such energy it becomes obvious that perhaps stardom is apparent, especially when accompanied what can only be described as the “monkey-squat” thrusts she was throwing out.

The trumpets weren’t required tonight and the band consisting of a guitarist, keyboard player and drummer made an impressive electro-pop racket with the help of a drum machine, a sampler and Lykke on a kazoo with other instrumental oddities. Unfamiliar with the Sugar Club’s normally reluctant crowd, she asked people to dance citing “This is a rock concert!”.

Eventually though after a string of songs showcasing her most upbeat tunes 40 or 50 people slid off their seats and went down in front to dance, dance, dance to ‘Breaking it Up’, which after last night, has become the standout track from her album Youth Novels. Shortly after the dance invasion however Lykke and band ran out of songs to play. “I’m a debut artist!”, she said defensively. An encore including a ragga version of ‘A Little Bit’ and a bizarre cover of A Tribe Called Quest’s ‘Can I Kick It?’ sated the appetite.

It was short and sweet but oh so good.

Lykke Li – Little Bit