Who Needs An Audience When You've Got Townes Van Zandt?

Andrew Bird @ the Venue - February 25, 2009

Got to the show a bit late and had to cantilever Chiara and I into a riser on the balcony. Had to balance on one foot, supported with a hand levered against some kind of smudgy ceiling strut to see anything. Finally eked out enough space to both breathe and stand just in time for the opener to go on.

Loney, Dear was that opener. They are a sort of Jens Lekman cum Belle and Sebastian outfit (as, indeed, one might expect a Swedish band to be) but perhaps not so precious as the sum of those two parts. I was utterly charmed. I liked them well enough to come home and buy their most recent album.

As is usually the case when rushing into a purchase of an opening band's record, I was somewhat disappointed by the studio versions of the songs that had seemed so lively to me in person. Oh well. Was still a very nice opening set and set the stage quite well for Andrew Bird.

So Andrew Bird is is like the terminator designed by Wes Anderson. He whistles, he skinny ties, he goes shoeless on stage, he plays violin and is enamored of electronic beats and samples. It's a hipster wet dream if one is the sort of hipster who wears sport coats and listens to NPR.

Guilty.

The set was a good mix of material from his new album, Noble Beast, and most of his other records from the past six years or so. They are all of a kind, all as quirky, melodic, and enjoyable as the next. The audience was engaged and I felt happy being there. There was nothing to surprise me, having seen him live before, but for those of you who have not, his routine deserves to be explained.

So Andrew Bird is a sort of indie-folk version of Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins - you know, in the scene where he has the one man band apparatus on. Bird plays, as I've already mentioned, the violin, but he also plays the guitar, the vibraphone, and, in the sense that it can be played, his clarion whistle. On top of all that, his drummer runs the sample board while drumming, his bassist plays the saxophone and the clarinet and his second guitarist--well, he just played the guitar, really.

But, because he can't possibly play all of these at once (why not try strapping the drumkit to your inner thighs and the vibes to your lower back says I) he employs an array of stomp boxes the likes of which I've never seen. He'll play a brief bit of music on the violin and hit the stomp box to loop it. Then, he'll play another refrain and loop that. Then, he'll pluck a melody line on the violin and loop that. He might whistle a few seconds of something and loop that. Eventually, he'll play some chords on his beautiful Gibson Les Paul and loop those before finally settling in to the lead guitar bit and the singing of the song, all the while backed by a piece of music seven or eight players deep - all of which are he and his three bandmates.

So every song is a stereophonic palimpsest and half the fun for the audience is watching (and hearing) the thing being built and then controlled throughout by Andrew incessantly jabbing at the row of buttons arranged at in front of him with his socked feet, bringing back or silencing little snippets of music he put down live at the beginning of the number. Its a great show and one can't help but appreciate the effort when so many would have just prerecorded whatever samples they might need and played them the same every night. Add to all of this the fact that his voice is soaringly better live than on record - a kind of arch version of Jeff Buckley's morose but exquisitely controlled wail - and I think anyone would say they had been to a great show.

Noble, But Also Tame

On Noble Beast Andrew Bird has toned down and pulled it back and I don't quite know what to make of that.

The melodies are all there, the whistling too. The lyrics are still winningly peculiar, playing as much with rhyme as with the way words sound and mean differently. It's a very pleasant listen, but it seldom jumps up out of the speakers at you, as I think several moments on his last full length album, Armchair Apocrypha did.

Every Andrew Bird album can be a bit samey and can have a kind of soporific effect, but Noble Beast is especially low-key throughout with really only one song ("Fitz and the Dizzyspells") to leaven the mood.

I heard a radio interview with Mr. Bird where he talked about the recording of Noble Beast. He said they started in the studio with the vocals and worked their way down (or up, depending) from there - and that's exactly what this album sounds like from time to time: like the rhythm tracks were the afterthoughts. It isn't that this quality makes the album especially one thing or another, but it has moments of bloodlessness that have me feeling it will fade in my memory.

I also felt that way about swaths of Bird's album Weather Systems, and to no surprise, this record was produced by the same guy.

Maybe it is only because of world events, or the season, but I find myself wishing for an album of more jagged, angular indie-folk. It isn't fair, I suppose, to impose some kind of particular expectation on the album; I ought just accept it for what it is and enjoy it.

And I am, mostly - the first half of the album especially. "Oh No" and "Fitz and the Dizzyspells," especially, are instantly memorable and chug along nicely. It went well with a glass (or three) of port and a well-stoked fire last night - but I'd be hard pressed to recall more than two or three of the fourteen tracks.

I will tell you this much: I went to see The Shins, Belle and Sebastian, and Andrew Bird at the Hollywood Bowl and Andrew Bird was the best of the lot by far. If you get the chance, go see him and his ridiculous live multitracking - its a lot of fun watching a man juggle a violin, a guitar, a xylophone, and a microphone all at once and still make really lovely music in the process.