Decemberists review
The Decemberists were frickin' amazing. I bought their latest CD in tribute to their greatness, and may go see them in Toronto with Jean this weekend assuming I can convince Mike he wants to see an indie rock band. At the very least I am urging Micah to go, because one of the members is Petra Hayden of "Acapella version of The Who Sell Out" fame, which Micah really digs.
The show was at the Beachland Ballroom. Apparently they have different definitions of sold out for different bands, because there were far more people there than there were for the sold out Black Keys show last year. I got there at 9:25, and even with advance tickets the line was so far out the door that I did not get in until after the opener finished. Encountered fadat, Sarita, Dave and Denise, plus of course Mike who works there, so we had a quorum of WRUWites. Or is that a minyan of WRUWites? The crowd was mostly youngish with many girls under 21 who were fun to look at but not old enough to hit on, but there was also a sprinkling of older types, who might just have been there with their kids but seemed to be rocking out in spite of that.
The Decemberists are all about clever lyrics and story songs which are two things I care about the most in music. They have above average musical chops but this is not a band you see for burning guitar riffs or massive drum solos. 6 members - drummer, lead singer / guitarist, backup singer / violinist, electric /
upright bassist, lead guitarist / auto harpist / triangle, accordion / keyboards. There was some banter and crowd interaction, but for the most part they went from song to song almost seamlessly. I am not deeply familiar with their work so I can say how much of which albums got played or anything like that.
In short, worth checking out if you like that sort of thing, and maybe even if you don't. Both my mom and Davis were right - and if Steve is reading this he knows I would not lightly include them both in the same sentence ( *really inside joke* ).
Steve, if you are reading this drop me an email, willya?
Coming - Springsteen, Unleashed, Episode III.