M. Ward March 8th at the Aladdin

photo credit: vassego in Washinton, DC 2/21/09

I went to see M.Ward March 8th at the Aladdin theater here in beautiful Portland with my friends Chris and Audry.  The opening band was Port O'Brien, who I really enjoyed.  Port O'Brien plays a whole lot of guitar.  In particular the lead guitar player was playing a reverbed Rickenbacker that sounded incredible.  The singer has a kind of Neil Young / Kurt Cobain screamy nasally thing going on that I quite enjoyed.  They had a female banjo player, but I couldn't really hear the banjo too much.  In all they were quite enjoyable and I plan on picking up their newest record.

M.Ward was incredible.  He played quite a bit off his new album but also mixed in quite a few songs from Post War for those of us who hadn't quite caught up with him yet on Hold Time.  One of the best things about M.Ward was the total groove he laid down, whether it be by himself or with the band.  I was really impressed how he could sing with the acoustic guitarists laying down the chords but still come off so tightly in his phrasing and musicality.  Quite impressive.

Of course, he has an incredible voice that's just one of those things he's blessed with, and he used it to great effect.  His songs are sensitive and thoughtful, and I loved the way he put arrangements together.  He's also a far better guitar player than I had anticipated.  He did a great instrumental guitar song that showed off his Bakersfield style Buck Owens skills quite nicely.  It was very impressive.

He must be a pretty shy person because the lighting was very dark.  For the most part he was in a blue shadow and not very visible.  He had a really cool lighting effect of a window pane on the back curtain.  As the concert went on the window went from showing a day scene to a beautiful night with lightning bugs flying around back to morning orange sunrise for the encore.  It was really cool.

I loved the concert - definitely one of the best I've seen in a while.  Can't wait to get the new record.

Andrew Bird at the Roseland

Photo credit: gussifer (this is actually a picture of the show the night before at the fillmore in san francisco)

Last night's Andrew Bird concert was the best I've seen in a long time, which is saying something because I've made it to my share of shows recently.  Anyone familiar with Andrew Bird's style of performance has an idea of how this might go, and if you aren't just plug his name into youtube and you can get a pretty good idea.  AB loops bits of music - many times starting with a plucked pizzicato violin part, could be for four bars or sometimes 8 or 16, and then begins layering on all kinds of accompaniment, including whistling, hand claps, vocals, bowed violin parts, etc until a song emerges.  He's perfected the art of doing this in such a way that at a certain part of all these loops the song just kind of snaps together.

Loney Dear, a band from Sweden, opened the show.  This wasn't the kind of show where you're blown away because everyone is so good.  AB definitely was the part that will stick in my mind.  Loney Dear had a couple of flavors of indie-pop, the acoustic/plaintive/quirky kind of song (which I generally like a lot) and the overwrought epic (which I generally do not) loaded with keyboards.  They were fairly inventive in their stage show, singing off mic or conducting sing-alongs (generally a risky move when you're the unbilled opener) which were quite enjoyable.  Overall though, I won't be buying the album.

When AB finally came out he played mostly songs off of his new album Noble Beast.  I do have this album, although I haven't had a chance to get into it as much as I might like (due to my newfound obsession with The National).  My unfamiliarity hardly mattered, though, as AB's infectious excitement over the new material sold the songs and the melodies flawlessly.  He is one of those performers who puts heart and soul into what he does.  The concert reminded me of the aspects of music that go back for centuries, as a cross between a religious service and a communal gathering.  If I hadn't bought his album already I definitely would have after this show.  In fact, I recommend you do so as well.

The one slight criticism I'd have of the show is that AB is perhaps just a wee bit bored of playing material off of Armchair Apocrypha, his last full album.  I say this because on some of those songs he was loose or inventive with the melodies and their rhythms in a way that kind of detracts from the original song.  For instance, one of the best things about the song "imitosis" is the syncopated rhythm of the vocals in the verse, and when they're stretched and stylized they lose some punch.

But this is a small trifle in an overall great performance.  I loved it and I can't wait to see him again.