Time's A Crooked Bow
Concert Review
Peter, Bjorn and John
with Andrew Bird
Pabst Theater, Milwuakee
Monday, August 6th, 2007
or, Time's A Crooked Bow
Walking out slowly and calmly, but like a man that needs a cane, you could imagine his frail figure having accumulated the wealth of 70 or 80 years of experience. His frazled hair, suit & tie, and odd mannerisms make allusions toward Einstein-like eccentricity. And these notions of complicated and incomprehensible genius are furthered by the soft poetry that dares you to try to analyze his meanings with any metaphysical, scientific, or poetic tool at your disposal.
And then he starts to play.
People often ask me about my favorite concert. Maybe an unordered top ten list is all I can ever come up with. But it would simply be impossible for me to fit last night's Andrew Bird performance at the Pabst Theater into the ranks. For example, can you pick your favorite from the following?
-Your best concert
-The smartest book you can understand
-Italian Gelato
-Your father telling you "I'm proud of you"
-A night of unbridled passion
These are simply too unique to categorize together. I couldn't rank them.
And the same is true of Andrew Bird.
His performances defy explanation. A typical classical violin piece leaves me with something ethereal. You feel like you're floating or soaring. You imagine something vast... like landscapes or space.
Bird's violin tingles and excites the very cells in your body. But the excitement spills through them like a dark virus. In that space, you're connecting with the ground between you and him. You're at eye-level. There's nothing imaginitory -- you've lost the ability to let your mind wander. You're transfixed and connected with him and every note he piles ontop of each other.
Other acts like Frou Frou's Imogen Heap and Final Fantasy's Owen Pallet have also played as if they were an entire band by looping their voice and instrumentation. This is not a pioneering concept. But no others that I have seen have had the talent to create something so imaginitive and original. He'll finger pick the violin while flailing like Stevie Wonder, then stomp his delay modeler stompbox to loop that track in the background. Next he'll lay some long and stretching violin melody over the top of the loop. Then he adds whistling that sounds more haunting than flittering. He'll spin his guitar around from his back and strum the accompanying riffs. And after adding glockenspiel strikes, he'll set his custom Specimen horn speakers spinning to distort all the sound. And finally his ghostly voice trails in, building in moaning intensity that captivates all eyes and ears in the theatre; so that even though we are desperately trying to find meaning in the enigmatic lyrics, we understand them all too well.
His songs' metaphors allude to historical events whose significance I'm not cultured enough to appreciate. The vocabulary is too broad for me to grasp. The science is too involved for me to follow. But I want to.
I find myself wanting him to play for hours. I find myself wanting to make his aquaintence. And the crowd wants more of him too. For the first time that I've ever seen, the crowd refused to let an opening act leave the stage. (Bird usually headlines, but opened for another, less noteworthy band tonight.) In fact, after he finished his set, we applauded for minutes on end. The house lights came on which is the universal signal that the band is completely done. But the crowd would have none of it. Standing and shouting, we applauded continuously. No, the next band can't set up... we want more Andrew Bird.
And then, unprecedentedly, the crowd demanded an encore from the opening act.
As an extra treat, Bird debuted his first-ever music video, which had just finished screening the night before. It was a stop-motion short that was as entralling and perplexing as the man himself. I could infer some themes of growth, reproduction, death, and decay on a cellular level. Other than that, I could only guess at what I was actually seeing on the screen as Bird played an accompanying dark but spritely tune out in front.
All I know is that I was transfixed. And I know I'll be sure to get to any and all other Andrew Bird shows in the area. You wont be sorry if you do the same.
A Nervous Tic Motion Of The Head To The Left (Click to listen.)
Over prescribed
Under the mister
We had survived to turn on the history channel
And ask our esteemed panel why are we alive?
And here�s how they replied
You�re what happens when two substances collide
And by all accounts you really should�ve died
Stretched out on the tarmac
Six miles south of north platte
He can�t stand to look back
At sixteen tons of hazmat
And it�s what goes
Undelivered undelivered
And it�s a nervous tic motion of the head to the left
It�s a nervous tic motion of the head to the left
Exorcise your cells till you�re bereft
�cause it�s a nervous tic motion of the head to the left
Splayed out on a bathmat
Six miles north of south platte
And he just wants his life back
What�s in that paper knapsack
It�s what goes undelivered
Over imbibed
Under the mister
Barely alive we
Cover the blisters in flannel
Though the words we speak are banal
Not one of them�s a lie
Not one of them�s a lie
You�re what happens when two substances collide
And by all accounts you really should�ve died
Posted by heydomsar
2007-08-07
go back | random brainstorm | go forth
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