by land, by sea, by dirigible
It seems like I start out most of my show reports this way, but it's so true: the Decemberists did not disappoint at their concert Saturday night. They put on a totally rockin' show as expected, with plenty of audience participation.
We arrived at the Riv relatively late-ish, apparently, since the line was already pretty long. We ended up in the second row, extreme stage right, which obviously isn't our prefered position, but we could see relatively well. Not having something to lean on really wreaks havoc on your body, though. The opener was a Scottish singer, Alasdair Roberts, and he was pretty good. Extremely mellow, though, and thus not exactly energizing.
Once again the Decemberists used Peter and the Wolf as the music during the setup time, and they had this crazy voiceover introduction to the show. The voice asked us to take a moment to meet your neighbor, and then instructed us to close our eyes and imagine ourselves on the edge of a canyon. Six figures approach from the horizon...
These six figures are of course the Decemberists themselves, who entered the stage then. They played an amazing show of a mix of old and new songs. They didn't play anything from the Crane Wife until a few songs in, when they played the Crane Wife 1, 2 and 3. For the second one he brought out what took me a few minutes to realize was a mandola. I'm just not used to hearing one as a leading voice. At one point Colin started rambling about Chicago, and how cold it was here. He had them turn the house lights up briefly, and noted that we were a very attractive audience, given how cold it was outside. Riiiight. Then he noted "I've talked to much". And they continued off.
At one point someone shouted out "working for the clampdown!" and Colin actually heard him. The band then broke into what I guess was the chorus of Clampdown by the Clash. They played a couple repeats of that phrase, then Colin announced with disgust that they had been faking horribly. He said he was so embarassed and that he would regret it for the rest of the tour. Then someone in the audience shouted out "Everything I seem to do!", I suppose, requesting the song, but Colin replied "yes, yes, nothing seems to turn out right, you see they're all autobiographical."
As I mentioned before, there was a considerable amount of singing along. They played 16 Military Wives, and during one of the last "La de da de da"s, Colin orchestrated a war between the two halves of the audience. He forced the people in the middle of the audience to separate and make a line, and to really make it: "families rent asunder! friends torn apart!" He then instructed each side of the audience to size up the other side, sneer at them, growl, and shake our fists, in that order. Starting the song back up he pointed back and forth when it was our time to "la de da", prompting our responses with "Your rebuttle, Senator?" and "Are you going to let them say that to you?" There was also singing in Sons and Daughters, but no contest this time; he just brought out every single person who was backstage and made them sing also.
The last song of the encore was A Cautionary Tale, and while Colin, Nate and Jenny were up on stage, John, Chris and Lisa were out in the audience with handheld percussion instruments, threading their way through the crowd. Eventually they stopped, and Colin again gave instructions to the audience, forcing everyone to carve out an open circle. Now, we couldn't see a thing that was going on in the circle, but Colin announced that they would now do a historical reenactment. The final battle of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit, he announced, and proceeded to assign roles to the band members on the floor. He initially assigned Lisa as Orcs, but she didn't like this, so he said she would be the Wood Elves instead. He told John that he would be the Orcs, and Chris would be "those big birds". During all of his assignments Jenny would come over and talk to him extensively, and yet he never seemed to change his answer as to the roles. He had the battle go on for a bit, and then started up the song again. Colin was completely cracking up the entire time, though, and could hardly sing.
With that fantastic ending, they made their exit. An awesome show, without a doubt.
We arrived at the Riv relatively late-ish, apparently, since the line was already pretty long. We ended up in the second row, extreme stage right, which obviously isn't our prefered position, but we could see relatively well. Not having something to lean on really wreaks havoc on your body, though. The opener was a Scottish singer, Alasdair Roberts, and he was pretty good. Extremely mellow, though, and thus not exactly energizing.
Once again the Decemberists used Peter and the Wolf as the music during the setup time, and they had this crazy voiceover introduction to the show. The voice asked us to take a moment to meet your neighbor, and then instructed us to close our eyes and imagine ourselves on the edge of a canyon. Six figures approach from the horizon...
These six figures are of course the Decemberists themselves, who entered the stage then. They played an amazing show of a mix of old and new songs. They didn't play anything from the Crane Wife until a few songs in, when they played the Crane Wife 1, 2 and 3. For the second one he brought out what took me a few minutes to realize was a mandola. I'm just not used to hearing one as a leading voice. At one point Colin started rambling about Chicago, and how cold it was here. He had them turn the house lights up briefly, and noted that we were a very attractive audience, given how cold it was outside. Riiiight. Then he noted "I've talked to much". And they continued off.
At one point someone shouted out "working for the clampdown!" and Colin actually heard him. The band then broke into what I guess was the chorus of Clampdown by the Clash. They played a couple repeats of that phrase, then Colin announced with disgust that they had been faking horribly. He said he was so embarassed and that he would regret it for the rest of the tour. Then someone in the audience shouted out "Everything I seem to do!", I suppose, requesting the song, but Colin replied "yes, yes, nothing seems to turn out right, you see they're all autobiographical."
As I mentioned before, there was a considerable amount of singing along. They played 16 Military Wives, and during one of the last "La de da de da"s, Colin orchestrated a war between the two halves of the audience. He forced the people in the middle of the audience to separate and make a line, and to really make it: "families rent asunder! friends torn apart!" He then instructed each side of the audience to size up the other side, sneer at them, growl, and shake our fists, in that order. Starting the song back up he pointed back and forth when it was our time to "la de da", prompting our responses with "Your rebuttle, Senator?" and "Are you going to let them say that to you?" There was also singing in Sons and Daughters, but no contest this time; he just brought out every single person who was backstage and made them sing also.
The last song of the encore was A Cautionary Tale, and while Colin, Nate and Jenny were up on stage, John, Chris and Lisa were out in the audience with handheld percussion instruments, threading their way through the crowd. Eventually they stopped, and Colin again gave instructions to the audience, forcing everyone to carve out an open circle. Now, we couldn't see a thing that was going on in the circle, but Colin announced that they would now do a historical reenactment. The final battle of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit, he announced, and proceeded to assign roles to the band members on the floor. He initially assigned Lisa as Orcs, but she didn't like this, so he said she would be the Wood Elves instead. He told John that he would be the Orcs, and Chris would be "those big birds". During all of his assignments Jenny would come over and talk to him extensively, and yet he never seemed to change his answer as to the roles. He had the battle go on for a bit, and then started up the song again. Colin was completely cracking up the entire time, though, and could hardly sing.
With that fantastic ending, they made their exit. An awesome show, without a doubt.