The Decemberists have a penchant for theatrics. That's apparent enough from their albums, which contain songs about doomed lovers, pirates and other themes you normally find in fairy tales. Their performance earlier tonight didn't prove otherwise either.
Lavender Diamond was an appropriate opener for the main event, with their dreamy lullabylike songs. The singer was either really ditzy, or smoked one joint too many before coming on stage, or were raised by hippies. She can't seem to stand still more than one minute or shut her mouth more than 30 seconds, bounding left and right and doing some kind of dance not unlike that of ballerinas warm up routines. Her voice is pleasant enough though, and rang clear through the smokefree hall (it's something the Decemberists insisted on, apparently). It didn't really strike a chord with most of the public, who found the music a bit dull, from what I gathered when I overheard a few people left and right of me complaining.
Finally, after hearing Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf (that's right, a children's story to open a concert!) from start to end, the band finally arrived. Almost. Before they played a recording of a voice insisting us of doing 3 important things before. The first one was to introduce ourselves to the person standing next to us and telling them random facts about ourselves. The second was to take a closer look of the hall we're in and to contemplate the architectural significance of the building. And to spare a thought to the eunuchs(!) who helped built it. And for the final one, we were to close our eyes and imagine ourselves standing in a canyon, smell the lavenders (at which point there was a light breeze that smelled like lavender), and to see the 6 figures standing on the edge. Cue the band.
They started with the first 2 tracks of their newest album, the Crane Wife and I was surprised to see how tight the band is. I always thoughtColin Melloy a bit arrogant, but he is certainly a charismatic frontman. He was cracking jokes about how the german carnival (Fasching) looked like a frat party and how he felt ripped off when he learned that the ancient looking townhall was built in 1908. The setlist was mainly songs from The Crane Wife, though they did play Billy Liar and The Engine Driver in the first half of the concert. Then came something I certainly never would've though I'd experience at a concert. They did something they called mid concert calesthenics, which involved the band playing and Colin showing the public which gymnastic moves they have to do. Brings me back to my schooldays. Needless to say the public duly obliged, and it was a laugh. Fast forward to Yankee Bayonets and O Valencia. Soon after they played 16 Military Wives. No doubt their most famous song. Here they again showed that they like to integrate the concert goers in the show. During the chorus which ended with him singing 'la dee da dee da' he divided the hall into 2 halves and got them to sing the line alternately. A contest as he put it. It lasted about 10 minutes I think. Great fun. They closed with Sons and Daughters which again involved the public singing along, egged once again by Colin.
The encore was a bit flat to my liking though, since they played Red Light Ankle and Clementine, whiche aren't really my favorite Decemberist song, truth be told. Another priceless moment ensued during Clementine though, with the drummer and the keybordist walzing on stage and Colin trying to get a few people to walz too, this time with no success.
It was certainly one of the most memorable concert I've been to. Shame they didn't play This Sporting Life or The Perfect Crime, two of the best song they've ever written. They didn't even play Eli The Barrel Boy, despite some girl screaming for that song everytime there's an extended pause. But despite this being only the second time I've been to a concert alone, I really enjoyed it and that's saying a lot since I was quite annoyed that not only I came much too early, I couldn't even have a cigarette to go with my beer. Who would've tought that they were that much fun!
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