Decemberists @ The Troubadour

April 12, 2004

Ever since the curtain fell at the Decemberist show in January, I’d been wanting to see them again. This feeling was only augmented with the release of The Tain EP, a 20 minute minor masterpiece that found the band performing a little alchemy with their anachronistic folk and creating some steely metal in its place. The Decemberists finally returned to Los Angeles last week on their “Never Send To Know With Whom The Van Rolls, It Rolls With Thee” Tour, I happily hit the Troubadour to see them again.

The Troubadour is twice as big as the last venue I saw them in, and they filled it to its capacity of 500 fairly easily. I was a little shocked, but I was happy to see that somehow word of mouth was spreading on the band, wherever it may be coming from. The band descended to the stage bathed in red light as a Russian choir sang (possibly Prokofiev?) in an entrance that any propagandist would be proud of.

Colin Meloy shyly began the set with “Los Angeles, I’m Yours,” simultaneously serenading and mocking the crowd with its wry lyrics. “I mean no offense,” he apologized as he finished, but the crowd was hot for it, standing to be insulted and paying for the privilege. The set continued with “Billy Liar,” a tremendous “July, July!” and a jaunty “Legionnaire’s Lament,” which is about as catchy a trio of songs as you’ll ever hear. It was as animated an audience as you could expect, mouthing the lyrics with fair accuracy and bouncing along to the pleading choruses.

The second segment of the set slowed down considerably, starting off with a creepy reading of “A Cautionary Song.” As usual, guitarist Chris Funk (AKA Crutchy McGee) stood their dancing during most of the song, until he stepped to his pedal steel to play a frenzied solo during the songs actual and metaphorical climax. The dead kid ballad of “Leslie Anne Levine” followed next, with Nate Query bowing his gigantic upright and causing the place to vibrate with a low thrum as Jenny Conlee continues to wow me with her haunting accordion work. Meloy dedicated “The Soldiering Life” to their home county in Portland for recognizing same-sex marriages, which got a huge response from the West Hollywood crowd.

With all the slower tempo stuff out of the way, the Decemberists fired up “The Chimbley Sweep,” which is generally their big live showcase piece. The song goes for almost three minutes on record, but it always lasts longer live, as Meloy and Funk do a little cuttin’ heads bit during an extended bridge. Trading licks back and forth between Meloy’s acoustic and Funk’s electric, the two duel with various tricks, including a little bit where they balance the guitars on their heads and also play with the guitars behind those same heads. Tonight, Meloy tries to finish Funk off by playing a little classical riff, exclaiming “That’s how Ralph Macchio won!” Funk polished him off before stepping to the mike and saying “Steve Vai salutes you.” As one of 20 people in the audience that had seen Crossroads, I laughed a lot.

Normally you wouldn’t follow “Chimbley Sweep,” but normally you’re not touring to support The Tain. Dedicating the song to “all the hair bands that played here before us,” the band ripped through the next twenty minutes with gusto. The Tain is a twenty minute song, but it has five distinct movements, so it doesn’t ever really get boring or monotonous. If you didn’t know it, you’d just think the band was going through five separate songs with just a few instrumental segues stitching it together. The first two movements have a distinct hard rock flavor, and the sprawling nature and the high concept (it’s based on a Celtic poem) suggest some of the more pretentious aspects of prog-rock. It’s dangerous ground to tread, but the Decemberists embrace their awkwardness and play with an endearing sense of humor which lets them get away with this sort of thing. During the 3rd (or is it 4th?) movement, Rachel Blumberg steps out from behind the kit to do solo vocals and play the melodica, with Colin Meloy taking her place at the drums. Blumberg’s voice has a soft child-like tone to it, and its a great change of place from Meloy’s exaggerated enunciations and affectations. Meloy’s drumming is serviceable but hilarious to watch, as he looks like an oversized marionette pounding the drums with his elbows and knees flailing all around. The transition back to the regular lineup after this bit was the only rough transition, as the audience interpreted the gaps between drum fills as a cue for applause. The Tain totally blew me out of my pantaloons and kept my short attention span at rapt attention.

The house was rocking after that and the band’s walkoff, so the encore began in short order. Meloy played “Red Right Ankle” on his 12 string, and it remains one of the more beautifully simple songs in recent memory. By the time Meloy reached the part about “crawling into your heart and tore your ventricles apart,” I heard more than a few people audibly sigh with their eyes all-a-flutter. This show was the last show of the last leg of the tour, and the Decemberists finished off the night with “I Was Meant For the Stage,” which slowly built until it’s cacophonous finish, which found the band going all out with the big rock: Meloy and Funk scraping and molesting guitars, special guest Tom Heinl whipping the band with guitar straps and Conlee pounding at her keyboards with whatever was handy. Meloy raced behind Funk and grabbed Funk’s mandolin and smashed it in the middle of the stage with enough force to splinter it completely. He’d probably been waiting all tour to destroy it, and he finally had his chance. Query grabbed its remains and bowed at his fallen upright with it, in a move that would have made Nigel Tufnel proud.

When the band was finally done trashing (but never truly injuring) their instruments, the “Never Send To Know With Whom The Van Rolls, It Rolls With Thee” Tour was finally over, and I was left just wanting to see it all again. The Decemberists go back on tour in June.

Setlist:

Los Angeles, I’m Yours
Billy Liar
July, July!
The Legionnaire’s Lament
A Cautionary Song
Leslie Anne Levine
The Bachelor and the Bride
The Solidering Life
Grace Cathedral Hill
The Chimbley Sweep
The Tain
–
Red Right Ankle
I Was Meant For The Stage

Posted in From Blown Speakers