Joining The Youth and Beauty Brigade

January 19, 2004

What better way to inaugurate January than to step back in time with the Decemberists? The dry winter concert season is finally starting to lighten up, and I’m finally able to jump back in the fray with one of my favorite bands from last year. I was slightly hesitant about the live situation with the Decemberists, as their albums have long stretches of sparse and delicate songs, which don’t necessarily always translate in concert. Colin Meloy’s slightly nasal voice also lives on the edge of off-key, so I was scared that a bad vocal performance could slip quickly into unbearable.

Alas, all my fears were unwarranted. Crowding the stage with five members, the Decemberists weighed their setlists heavily towards their uptempo pop work and were able to put together a driving show that didn’t lag at any moment. Blasting off with their ode to Bee Season author, “Myla Goldberg,” the band’s work has a little more oomph than on vinyl. The lineup starts as a traditional rock band, but within a few songs Jenny Conlee substitutes her keys with an accordion, Chris Funk alternates his Telecaster with a pedal steel and Nate Query ditches his bass for an upright. Even drummer Rachel Blumberg mixes in a Glockenspiel with her drumkit. This freewheeling combination of the old and new keys their timeless sound. With all these variables, The Decemberists lucked into a fine mix for the evening, as the instruments popped without overpowering Colin Meloy’s enthusiastically enunciated vocals. It’s great when people can hear a song for the first time and actually understand the lyrics. Meloy’s storytelling is the Decemberists’ greatest strength, and I’m glad that it didn’t get swallowed up by bad club acoustics.

They stepped back with one of their very first recorded numbers, the wistful and cruel “Oceanside,” and played quite a bit of material from their first record Castaways and Cutouts. “A Cautionary Song,” featured Chris Funk (aka Crutchy McGee) swinging his arms back and forth like Popeye, since that song didn’t require his instrumental services. Newer material worked just as well, with “Billy Liar” bouncing its tale of a misbehaving truant to much approval and “Chimbley Sweep” providing an extended instrumental break in its Russian circus-like bridge. The greatest early highlight was definitely “Los Angeles, I’m Yours,” a love/hate song to Los Angeles that every Angeleno in attendance could identify with. The set closed with the ever clever “Legionnaire’s Lament,” which has some of the most stunning arrays of goofy rhymes ever penned.

The encore started with Colin Meloy playing a solo version of Big Star’s “Ballad of El Goodo,” one of the very best versions of that song I’ve heard. Meloy approaches the song with an uncertainty and vulnerability that really flips the chorus around. Blumberg came back on stage to accompany Meloy on the fragile beauty of “Red Right Ankle,” with another winning performance by Meloy. The full band finally came on to romp through “California One” and segue that to “Youth and Beauty Brigade” with a few touches of R.E.M.’s “7 Chinese Brothers” mixed in.

Just like that, it was finished. The show was a bit crunched as there was a dance party scheduled right aftewards, so the set lasted a little over an hour. It was a bit of a disappointment since I heard the night before the show went closer to eighty minutes, but that’s me being cranky. The Decemberists were far more entertaining than I thought they would be, and everyone in the well-kept and well-read audience were ready to join the Decemberists’ Revolution.

Posted in From Blown Speakers