"the prettiest whistles won't wrestle the thistles undone"
the temperatures have cooled down considerably from the sweltering climes of last week and i find myself upon the threshold of yet another weekend. before i can regale you with stories of guilt and proposals, it is time to make that long-awaited decemberists concert post (alright, maybe after two such entries you've heard enough, but they're my favourite band, so bear with me here).
cliomuse and i met up after i got off of work and bussed downtown. we met fizz_bubbles after a brief and interesting dinner at tim horton's. fizz_bubbles was in conversation with the folks in front and behind her in line and she introduced us to them all (what a social butterfly). we got on best with the folks in front of us -- two near-virgin concert-goers: jennifer and ronald (physics and astronomy students over at ubc). namelessfodder arrived before the doors opened and then, with our concert virgins in tow, we scurried up the stairs and staked our claim on the front and centre seats of the balcony.
the beautiful thing about the vogue theatre is that they actually start on time whereas places like the commodore and richard's on richards (God rest its dingy, alcohol-soaked soul) wait for people to buy up as much alcohol as possible and get extremely antsy before letting the main act on stage (and by this point, bus riding patrons usually have to step out halfway through the set in order to catch transit home). so, when a ticket says "show at 8pm" for a place like the vogue theatre, you know it will start on time and end at a respectable hour.
aaaanyways. the opener was another portland band called blind pilot and they weren't bad (i bought their cd later for $10). a wide range of instruments were featured and the lead singer's voice was very pleasing to the ears. turns out i had even heard one of their songs, one red thread, prior to the concert (one of the perks to sharing logical_low's computer and itunes is that he often gets those singles of the week and, sometimes, they're actually good).
after a brief intermission where the stagehands did sound checks on the myriad instruments (there were six sets of drums on stage and tons more stringed things), the decemberists came out starting with jenny who struck up the organ to play the ominous prelude to their latest LP, the hazards of love.
they played the whole album all the way through without a break or the usual cheeky crowd banter. a near-solid hour of performing.
the background on stage was a white sheet hung with what looked like columns of cheesecloth. the lighting was quite notable for the way they choreographed it to work with the performance; making the stage look like a primeval forest or a flowing river.
isn't it a lovely night? isn't my favourite song, but the lighting was nifty.
as colin sang, he looked no less a muppet (with his mouth opening wide and the top of his head seeming to tilt back instead of his jaw going down) than usual. some of the highlights from the album set included:
the wanting comes in waves/repaid - guest vocalist shara worden as the evil queen was a brilliant move. her deep, powerful voice has the right amount of menace and honey in it to immediately inspire awe and respect. coupled with the fact that she had the rockstar moves down-pat and looked like she was really enjoying herself made her an instant crowd pleaser. becky stark who sang the part of margaret was definitely upstaged (and, though she was great in her role, i don't do well with the idea of swooning, lovestruck maidens... probably one of the reasons i initially discounted the new album in the first place... the girl's a bit dippy -- pretty and fey in a joanna newsom sort of way -- but just a tad too flower childish).
the rake's song - a bunch of the band members got a pair of drum mallets and had a blast banging on a set of drums each for this one.
the queen's rebuke/the crossing - more shara. more shara-loving from the crowd.
after the set, they went offstage for a quick intermission, promising a mini set afterwards.
1) angel, won't you call me?
2) july, july!"
3) billy liar - colin: here's what happens to you when you don't find a job...
4) we both go down together
5) crazy on you (heart cover) - shara and becky came back for a duet sharing the verses and doing a bang-up job of singing at the top of their lungs. great harmonies as well.
here is a fairly decent recording of it from their minneapolis show:
6) 16 military wives - they started this one off with a little bit of scat improvisation and then launched into the song. then colin got us to participate in singing the "la di da di da"s and various other accompaniments.
7) then colin chatted with the crowd a bit and thanked blind pilot for opening and said that they were still new musicians on the scene unlike he who was a veteran and that, when you're new, you still feel uncomfortable with your early works -- unlike colin who then played us his worst song ever:
dracula's daughter
oh look! it's actually a video of what we saw. click to relive the magic we witnessed!
8) and then, if you watched the video, you would know that they segued into o, valencia!
ENCORE!
9) red right ankle - colin played this one solo with jenny coming in on the accordion.
10) "if you go home learning only one thing tonight," colin said, "remember this..."
a cautionary song
colin, nate, shara and jenny stayed onstage and soon enough, john, chris and becky descended into the audience banging their drum and clanging some cymbals.
before the last verse, they stopped and colin enlightened us with a tale of the discovery of british columbia by olaf the pretty good (played by john) in order to win the hand of the virginal norse maiden. chris funk played the friendly indigenous person building teepees with audience members on the other side of the "ocean" (more audience members, bobbing up and down).
olaf crossed the sea by crowd-surfing to the other side and the story came to an end with the friendly native shaking hands with olaf and colin explaining that all the natives died out due to smallpox thanks to olaf.
they then concluded the final verse with the punchline (that forever endeared them to me) and the show was over.
for fizz_bubble's account and much better quality pictures, go to her blog here
this time with logical_low. the show progressed much like the first, but they seemed a bit more tired (less exuberance with audience participation). after performing the hazards of love all the way through again, the setlist followed thus:
1) oceanside
2) here i dreamt i was an architect
3) bachelor and the bride
4) engine driver
5) two new songs! - one "about miners... with an 'e'" and another whose subject matter escapes me now. i am pleased to say that the sound was more like the decemberists style i fell in love with in the first place. the instrumentation was more like castaways and cutouts while the subject matter seems more historical in the vein of the crane wife. very good things.
6) july, july! - some fellow in the audience yelled it out as a request saying: "i'm here all the way from norway. please play 'july, july!'!" so they did. i love that they can deviate and still do a great job.
7) dracula's daughter
8) o, valencia!
9) crazy on you
ENCORE!
10) shankill butchers
11) sons and daughters - we all got to sing the final chorus: "hear all the bombs, they fade away." good ending.
going home on mass transit afterwards was a nightmare due to the fireworks. our bus was packed to the gills and someone had the bright idea of smoking pot in the bus. we were stopped by transit police (being the goody-goody i am, i was terrified that they would ticket me for not paying my fare which, by the way, was in my hot little hand -- i just couldn't get to the front to pay it), but they couldn't even get on the bus to investigate the complaint and so we were sent on our way.
no more concerts coming up (that i know of). this actually is a relief to me. i'm concerted out!
cliomuse and i met up after i got off of work and bussed downtown. we met fizz_bubbles after a brief and interesting dinner at tim horton's. fizz_bubbles was in conversation with the folks in front and behind her in line and she introduced us to them all (what a social butterfly). we got on best with the folks in front of us -- two near-virgin concert-goers: jennifer and ronald (physics and astronomy students over at ubc). namelessfodder arrived before the doors opened and then, with our concert virgins in tow, we scurried up the stairs and staked our claim on the front and centre seats of the balcony.
the beautiful thing about the vogue theatre is that they actually start on time whereas places like the commodore and richard's on richards (God rest its dingy, alcohol-soaked soul) wait for people to buy up as much alcohol as possible and get extremely antsy before letting the main act on stage (and by this point, bus riding patrons usually have to step out halfway through the set in order to catch transit home). so, when a ticket says "show at 8pm" for a place like the vogue theatre, you know it will start on time and end at a respectable hour.
aaaanyways. the opener was another portland band called blind pilot and they weren't bad (i bought their cd later for $10). a wide range of instruments were featured and the lead singer's voice was very pleasing to the ears. turns out i had even heard one of their songs, one red thread, prior to the concert (one of the perks to sharing logical_low's computer and itunes is that he often gets those singles of the week and, sometimes, they're actually good).
after a brief intermission where the stagehands did sound checks on the myriad instruments (there were six sets of drums on stage and tons more stringed things), the decemberists came out starting with jenny who struck up the organ to play the ominous prelude to their latest LP, the hazards of love.
they played the whole album all the way through without a break or the usual cheeky crowd banter. a near-solid hour of performing.
the background on stage was a white sheet hung with what looked like columns of cheesecloth. the lighting was quite notable for the way they choreographed it to work with the performance; making the stage look like a primeval forest or a flowing river.
isn't it a lovely night? isn't my favourite song, but the lighting was nifty.
as colin sang, he looked no less a muppet (with his mouth opening wide and the top of his head seeming to tilt back instead of his jaw going down) than usual. some of the highlights from the album set included:
the wanting comes in waves/repaid - guest vocalist shara worden as the evil queen was a brilliant move. her deep, powerful voice has the right amount of menace and honey in it to immediately inspire awe and respect. coupled with the fact that she had the rockstar moves down-pat and looked like she was really enjoying herself made her an instant crowd pleaser. becky stark who sang the part of margaret was definitely upstaged (and, though she was great in her role, i don't do well with the idea of swooning, lovestruck maidens... probably one of the reasons i initially discounted the new album in the first place... the girl's a bit dippy -- pretty and fey in a joanna newsom sort of way -- but just a tad too flower childish).
the rake's song - a bunch of the band members got a pair of drum mallets and had a blast banging on a set of drums each for this one.
the queen's rebuke/the crossing - more shara. more shara-loving from the crowd.
after the set, they went offstage for a quick intermission, promising a mini set afterwards.
1) angel, won't you call me?
2) july, july!"
3) billy liar - colin: here's what happens to you when you don't find a job...
4) we both go down together
5) crazy on you (heart cover) - shara and becky came back for a duet sharing the verses and doing a bang-up job of singing at the top of their lungs. great harmonies as well.
here is a fairly decent recording of it from their minneapolis show:
Click to view6) 16 military wives - they started this one off with a little bit of scat improvisation and then launched into the song. then colin got us to participate in singing the "la di da di da"s and various other accompaniments.
7) then colin chatted with the crowd a bit and thanked blind pilot for opening and said that they were still new musicians on the scene unlike he who was a veteran and that, when you're new, you still feel uncomfortable with your early works -- unlike colin who then played us his worst song ever:
dracula's daughter
oh look! it's actually a video of what we saw. click to relive the magic we witnessed!
8) and then, if you watched the video, you would know that they segued into o, valencia!
ENCORE!
9) red right ankle - colin played this one solo with jenny coming in on the accordion.
10) "if you go home learning only one thing tonight," colin said, "remember this..."
a cautionary song
colin, nate, shara and jenny stayed onstage and soon enough, john, chris and becky descended into the audience banging their drum and clanging some cymbals.
before the last verse, they stopped and colin enlightened us with a tale of the discovery of british columbia by olaf the pretty good (played by john) in order to win the hand of the virginal norse maiden. chris funk played the friendly indigenous person building teepees with audience members on the other side of the "ocean" (more audience members, bobbing up and down).
olaf crossed the sea by crowd-surfing to the other side and the story came to an end with the friendly native shaking hands with olaf and colin explaining that all the natives died out due to smallpox thanks to olaf.
they then concluded the final verse with the punchline (that forever endeared them to me) and the show was over.
for fizz_bubble's account and much better quality pictures, go to her blog here
this time with logical_low. the show progressed much like the first, but they seemed a bit more tired (less exuberance with audience participation). after performing the hazards of love all the way through again, the setlist followed thus:
1) oceanside
2) here i dreamt i was an architect
3) bachelor and the bride
4) engine driver
5) two new songs! - one "about miners... with an 'e'" and another whose subject matter escapes me now. i am pleased to say that the sound was more like the decemberists style i fell in love with in the first place. the instrumentation was more like castaways and cutouts while the subject matter seems more historical in the vein of the crane wife. very good things.
6) july, july! - some fellow in the audience yelled it out as a request saying: "i'm here all the way from norway. please play 'july, july!'!" so they did. i love that they can deviate and still do a great job.
7) dracula's daughter
8) o, valencia!
9) crazy on you
ENCORE!
10) shankill butchers
11) sons and daughters - we all got to sing the final chorus: "hear all the bombs, they fade away." good ending.
going home on mass transit afterwards was a nightmare due to the fireworks. our bus was packed to the gills and someone had the bright idea of smoking pot in the bus. we were stopped by transit police (being the goody-goody i am, i was terrified that they would ticket me for not paying my fare which, by the way, was in my hot little hand -- i just couldn't get to the front to pay it), but they couldn't even get on the bus to investigate the complaint and so we were sent on our way.
no more concerts coming up (that i know of). this actually is a relief to me. i'm concerted out!