Decemberists concert!!!
Nov. 10th, 2008 12:04 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
edenfallingTonight I did something very uncharacteristic and went to a rock concert. (Well, insofar as the Decemberists are a rock band, which they both are and aren't. They're weird and cool and I love them to bits.)
They're on tour mostly with another Oregon group called Loch Lomond, who are equally weird but in a different direction -- a little more folk music, a more choral sound -- but tonight they added a second opening band, the also peculiar Walkmen -- jazz lyrics with hard rock instrumentals and a dash of ska flavoring, plus their singer sounds like Bob Dylan only with an actual vocal range.
The concert was in Barton Hall at Cornell. Loch Lomond started off at about 7:05 (remarkably close to on time!) and played until 7:45ish, after which there was a fifteen minute break while they reset the stage. Then the Walkmen played for about 45 minutes, followed by another break (this one more like 30 minutes), and finally the Decemberists came on around 9:15. They played until nearly 11pm, including the encore.
It was great. Colin Meloy was apparently fighting a cold, but he sang damn well despite that, and when he got lost on the third verse of O Valencia!, he just laughed at himself, waited for the band to vamp back to the right chord, and went right on. He enlisted us into a lot of call and response stuff, which he claimed was mostly to save his voice but which I think was also because he really likes working a crowd. (Proof of this: he climbed the ladder to the front bank of lights during one song, just for the hell of it.)
I could have done with a bit less political commentary between songs, but hey, if there's any place you can get away with heart-on-sleeve liberalism, Ithaca is it. And Colin goofed around a lot, too, and the whole band was clearly having a ball, so I figure what the hell, they supported Obama enough to play one of his rallies out west, they've earned some exuberance. :-)
And oh wow, the songs were great! They're a lot more high energy (or maybe just less acoustic) live than I thought they might be, and the balance obviously favors the instruments over the vocals -- live performances generally do -- which is a pity since Colin writes such interesting lyrics, but they're so infectious (even when singing about death and murder and god knows what all) that I couldn't help smiling and dancing a little.
*twirls*
And now I need to get to bed, since I'm opening the store in the morning.
They're on tour mostly with another Oregon group called Loch Lomond, who are equally weird but in a different direction -- a little more folk music, a more choral sound -- but tonight they added a second opening band, the also peculiar Walkmen -- jazz lyrics with hard rock instrumentals and a dash of ska flavoring, plus their singer sounds like Bob Dylan only with an actual vocal range.
The concert was in Barton Hall at Cornell. Loch Lomond started off at about 7:05 (remarkably close to on time!) and played until 7:45ish, after which there was a fifteen minute break while they reset the stage. Then the Walkmen played for about 45 minutes, followed by another break (this one more like 30 minutes), and finally the Decemberists came on around 9:15. They played until nearly 11pm, including the encore.
It was great. Colin Meloy was apparently fighting a cold, but he sang damn well despite that, and when he got lost on the third verse of O Valencia!, he just laughed at himself, waited for the band to vamp back to the right chord, and went right on. He enlisted us into a lot of call and response stuff, which he claimed was mostly to save his voice but which I think was also because he really likes working a crowd. (Proof of this: he climbed the ladder to the front bank of lights during one song, just for the hell of it.)
I could have done with a bit less political commentary between songs, but hey, if there's any place you can get away with heart-on-sleeve liberalism, Ithaca is it. And Colin goofed around a lot, too, and the whole band was clearly having a ball, so I figure what the hell, they supported Obama enough to play one of his rallies out west, they've earned some exuberance. :-)
And oh wow, the songs were great! They're a lot more high energy (or maybe just less acoustic) live than I thought they might be, and the balance obviously favors the instruments over the vocals -- live performances generally do -- which is a pity since Colin writes such interesting lyrics, but they're so infectious (even when singing about death and murder and god knows what all) that I couldn't help smiling and dancing a little.
*twirls*
And now I need to get to bed, since I'm opening the store in the morning.
