And granted for their pleasure...

Friday night at the Orpheum, the Decemberists played "The Tain" and Chris Funk brought up the Bristol Renaissance Faire. That's my headline version of the evening - if my imaginary newspaper only had room for one sentence about the show, that would be it. Because really, what other ingredients do you need for awesomeness?

Okay, some other stuff happened too. My Brightest Diamond opened the show. I was completely unfamiliar with Shara Worden and her band, but came away impressed with what I heard. The songs managed to be pretty while rocking at the same time. I thought some of the material reminded me a bit of early U2 - that is, if Bono were a breathy-voiced woman and could actually play guitar.

The Decemberists came out shortly after 9:00 and started things off with "The Crane Wife 1." I'm used to Decemberists shows being pretty short, and I honestly don't think they played a ton of songs this time either - but the show managed to clock in at nearly two hours, which in my Decemberists memory is unusual. Then again, they played all three parts of the "The Island," "The Mariner's Revenge Song" (I always forget how much more fun that is live than on the record - John Moen doing the whole thing blindfolded was a nice touch) and oh yeah, THE TAIN. Did I mention they played "The Tain?" I seem to recall seeing them do it live once before, but to be honest, I could just be making that up because I know I've wanted to see it. Anyway, it was a treat. Colin is a lot of fun to watch on the drums.

The last time the band played the Orpheum, Colin invited a bunch of fans onstage. He mentioned that incident, joking that the crowd actually "bum rushed" the stage and he definitely had no part in it. More comments were made about the height of the stage, too - I think joking about the stage height might be in the contract bands sign to play the Orpheum. Unlike the show I saw late last year in Chicago, no theatrical scenes were acted out in the audience. Colin did once again pit sections of the crowd against each other for duelling "la di da's" at the end of "16 Military Wives," though, and he organized a brief dance competition at the front of the crowd. I can understand why some people think Decemberists shows can be too gimmicky or theatrical, but I enjoy that aspect. They are performers, and the majority of the audience - especially the kids in front - eat it up. That's part of what a Decemberists show is, and everyone should really know it by now.

And yes, I did just refer to the "kids" up front. Good Lord, Decemberists shows make me feel old.

The Decemberists Players Present

Ah, there's always plenty of audience participation at a Decemberists show. Saturday night in Chicago was no exception to the rule. (The show was at the Riv ... it occurred to me that I've seen the Decemberists five times now, and Colin twice - all in Madison or Chicago - and not once at the same venue.)

I was feeling seriously lazy after my late Friday, and I briefly entertained the notion of passing this one up. But in the end I just couldn't do it. I've found in general that as tempting as it may be, the "doing nothing" option is never the choice I'm happiest with afterward. Also, I already had a ticket, I love The Crane Wife, and I've never had a bad time at a Decemberists show. So down I went.

Alasdair Roberts, along with drummer and bassist, opened the show. He was ... Scottish. The music was fine; your typical traditional Celtic-type fare. His accent was the best part of the performance for me.

The Decemberists took the stage around 8:30 and launched immediately into "Leslie Anne Levine". Yay! They actually played only six of the ten songs on The Crane Wife (or 9 of 13, depending on how you look at it) but they were the songs I most wanted to hear, so that was fine with me. They played "The Crane Wife 1 & 2", and "3" in order, apparently for the first time.

Besides the new songs and the opener, we also heard "We Both Go Down Together", "The Engine Driver" (swoon), "July! July!" into "16 Military Wives" (fun!), and an encore of "Red Right Ankle" and "A Cautionary Song". Oh, and a snippet of, um, "Clampdown", after Colin misheard someone's request for them to "play 'The Final Countdown'".

Aside from the usual singalongs, the first major crowd participation bit came when Colin decided to divide the theater down the middle and pit the right side against the left side in singing the end of "16 Military Wives". I happened to be on the front line - lucky me! In addition to singing we were encouraged to leer, growl, and shake our fists at the opposition.

The second crowd participation bit came when, during "A Cautionary Song", half of the Decemberists made their way to the middle of the floor, had the crowd form a circle, and Colin announced that "The Decemberists Players" were going to reenact for us the battle at the end of Lord of the Rings. Having never seen the battle at the end of Lord of the Rings, I can't remember specifics, but I know that there were elves and Orcs and Chris Funk was a big bird. I could have done with one more song to close the show, with the whole band onstage, but oh well.

No mandolin was destroyed at the end of this performance, unlike last time I saw the band, but it was still a fun night.


The band


Colin


John Moen during the LOTR reenactment

My 10 favorite shows of 2005

It turns out I saw exactly forty shows in 2005. I apologize to the thirty that aren't included on this list ... well, I apologize to most of them.

Something funny happened when I looked back over an entire year of music-related memories. It turns out that some of the shows I thought were really awesome right after they happened just don’t stick out in my memory anymore. And some shows that I initially thought were simply “good,” I found myself coming back to and thinking “you know, that was actually pretty freaking sweet.” Of course, some shows I was exactly right about all along.

To cut off further ramblings, here’s my list:

1. 1/29/05 Jeff Tweedy, SnS Basement – This predated my blog, but hot damn. It wasn’t just the best show (weekend, actually) of 2005, it may have been the best one ever.
2. 6/29/05 Wilco, Albright-Knox Art Gallery – I think this was the best Wilco show I saw all year, and I saw a lot of Wilco shows. And the setting couldn’t be beat.
3. 10/20/05 Decemberists, Orpheum – A little sloppy, but as fun and unusual a show as you could hope for. How often does one get to take home a piece of smashed mandolin?
4. 10/26/05 Rhett Miller, High Noon Saloon – Rhett and Madison are an excellent combination.
5. 12/7/05 Jason Molina, Robbie Fulks; Second City – Laid-back, intimate, and super. Robbie covered “Dancing Queen” and “Billie Jean,” and he meant them.
6. 5/9/05 U2, United Center– It may not have done for me what it did four years ago, but a U2 show is still a pretty grand experience – especially from the front row of the “ellipse” in front of The Edge. (Pictures)
7. 5/7/05 Wilco, Vic – the show where everything went wrong onstage created some of my fondest concert memories of the year.
8. 5/23/05 Glenn Kotche, Pick-Staiger Auditorium – I know he was just the opener, but this was the first time I heard and saw up close a lot of Glenn’s upcoming material, and I loved it. I even put one of the songs on a mix CD for a friend’s birthday.
9. 1/19/05 Colin Meloy, Schuba's – the first time I’d seen Colin solo, at one of my favorite places. He was charming, and the songs were lovely.
10. 7/17/05 Wrens, Andrew Bird, Decemberists; Union Park – It was about 100 degrees outside, and dusty, and gross, but this was a really fun trio of performances from a super-appreciative bunch of musicians. (Pictures)

That’s it! I can’t do an honorable mention list, because it would be far too long.

I danced with Colin Meloy

Then again, so did a lot of people on Thursday night at the Orpheum. That was one crazy-ass concert. Looking back on it, my overall feeling is "That was a great show!" But it didn't really start out that way. They realized that and turned it into a great show, though, which is a really vital talent to have as performers. It separates the decent from the good from the great.

I arrived at the Orpheum a little before doors, fueled by a few handfuls of Cheez-Its I'd managed to scarf down between work and the concert. Woo! Since I know what the balcony is like, I decided to sit in the front row to check out that perspective. Reminder - the stage at the Orpheum is elevated to about seven feet, which is why this isn't an open-and-shut case. There were some annoying aspects of being down there in the front: I couldn't always see John Moen, and some of the people in front of me (yes, some people are dumb enough to get really, really close to the stage so they have to crane their necks at a 90 degree angle to see the perfomance) were distracting. But overall, definitely the right decision. From my spot a few feet back I could see fine (one benefit of an insanely tall stage, after all) and I would have felt really left out in the balcony as the show progressed.

At the beginning, things meandered. Each song, though played well, seemed like an isolated performance; islands of action between tuning and giggling and chatter from the band. It was fun, but not exactly "great show" material. Petra is supposed to high five the front row if she makes a bad joke, but due to the stage, she would run to the corner, bend down, and have people flock to her. Colin had to do this at one point as well. For awhile Jenny's accordion didn't work, Colin flubbed some lines of "16 Military Wives," and totally blanked on a line in "Eli."

The good was really quite good, however. Solo, Colin covered "When I Was a Baby" by the Donner Party. We heard "Engine Driver" and "On the Bus Mall," among my favorite one-two song punches of all time. And finally, at my fourth Decemberists concert, I heard the aforementioned "16 Military Wives." Ahhh.

Then, the real goofiness began. Before "Chimbley Sweep" Colin ran us through some calisthenics, and wound up by leading us in waving our arms in the air while singing a few bars of "With or Without You" by U2. During "Chimbley Sweep," Colin gave Chris Funk a sensual chest massage before playing his guitar from behind. Then he invited everyone onto the stage while Petra, Nate, John, Chris, and Jenny jammed. I almost went up there, but after noting the sizeable wall to be scaled, wisely decided against it. There must have been forty kids up there, though. Meanwhile, Colin came down and danced with those of us on the floor in front. By the end of "Chimbley Sweep," he had the crowd in the palm of his hand.

The encore was "Mariner's Revenge Song," and Chris busted out an awesome set of cardboard whale jaws for the occasion. (He'd earlier joked that the tall stage was theirs and they got it from Cheap Trick, by the way. I thought, "Oh, if only you guys were taking it with you.") Colin sat dangling his legs off the stage and pretending to kick people. He also flung picks into the crowd.

But that's not quite the end. Once the show was over, the band started playing a game of keep-away with Chris Funk's mandolin. It dropped on the stage, and suddenly they all rushed to stomp on it! They totally destroyed it, and then started tossing chunks of mandolin into the crowd. It was pretty awesome. I got a very small piece. Plus, I got a setlist, which has a charmingly bad doodle of a satyr (centaur?) on it. I'd like to know who's responsible for that.

Gotta get me a turntable

Oooooooooooh! I got home from work, and propped up against my door was the lovely, lovely Picaresque on vinyl! NAVY and MAROON vinyl! (The maroon looks more purple to me, and the navy more ... not navy.) Anyway, sooo pretty. My eyes are like two little cartoon hearts right now.

Intonation photos

Click on the thumbnails for (very) big versions. For extra fun, hover over the thumbnails first - some have secret messages!

Sunday, July 17 2005
Intonation Festival
Union Park, Chicago

Andrew Bird









The Wrens





The Crowd




The Decemberists

July, July

Sunday was the second day of Pitchfork's Intonation Festival, and the only day I decided to attend. I drove Gina down and we met some Chicago peeps, and we saw Andrew Bird, the Wrens, and the Decemberists. They were all good, even though the weather was hot, sticky, and gross. Combined with the dust and sand blowing around Union Park by the time the Decemberists came on, we were incredibly disgusting by the time we left.

Andrew Bird played for a little under an hour (that was the standard festival set). It's hard to compare his performance to the one I saw in Madison. On one hand, he of course didn't get to play as many songs yesterday. He also didn't seem quite as intense as he had in Madison (though that's not exactly a complaint.) On the other hand, his longtime collaborator Kevin O'Donnell was there playing drums, which added a whole new cool dynamic to the show. And he didn't have nearly as many false starts and screw-ups as there were in Madison. All told, I enjoyed the performances about equally (though I could actually see well this time.) But someday I shall see Andrew Bird in a setting where I'm not in danger of melting from the heat.

I don't have as much to say about the Wrens - they put on a really good show. I haven't listened to the Meadowlands very much, but they really performed the hell out of everything. During one song they invited some fans up onto the stage to play percussion with them. I enjoyed that very much.

The Decemberists were the last act of the festival, and played for about an hour and 20 minutes. A really fun, upbeat set. This was the third time I'd seen them (fourth including Colin solo) and there were two songs I'd never heard live before but always wanted to - Song for Myla Goldberg, and The Legionnaire's Lament. We got both last night. Plus a lovely solo version of Red Right Ankle. I'd probably have rather heard some other songs (or The Tain) instead of the Mariner's Revenge Song, but I can't really complain. My favorite Decemberists show was still the first time I saw them, at Luthers (R.I.P) ... but this was probably second. The crowd was very enthusiastic.

I should have some pictures later, if all goes well.

Burning Decemberists-related questions

Things I’d like to ask Colin Meloy, but won’t, because although I’m a dork, I’m not that much of a dork:

• Is the “lazy lady” who “had a baby girl” Odalisque? Or was the baby girl Odalisque?


• What the hell is the timeline for “My Mother Was a Chinese Trapeze Artist?” Is it just fancifully out of whack? The character’s mother was a Chinese trapeze artist in pre-war Paris, so we’re in 1939 at the latest. So how did she have a daughter whose husband dreamed of starting up a punk rock band in South Carolina? (Also, did she just live amongst the cattle until her husband came along? Is he even her husband? Maybe he adopted her, making the timeline even weirder…)


• “I’ve not been swept since the day my husband died.” That disturbs me. The very day he died? Not impossible, but raises a few more questions.