la pomme du ciel

It finally happened. I finally made it to a show. I haven’t been to one since, unless I am mistaken, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah! What did I miss in the meantime? The Dears. And, oh, just Autolux. Just the Fiery Furnaces. Haven’t seen a local show since the Jenn Gooch CD release, unless you count bartending for the Beagle Brothers CD release show in June. Which I do. Not. As much as I love that album.

I’ve been a bit jaded about music as a whole, at least until a few weeks ago, when I discovered the Army behind Black Mountain. Ironically enough, I’d been pretty jaded about everything lately. I was about a fingernail clipping away from not giving a damn about a ticket I got in April. I mean, I was just hoping for a couple of my favorite songs from a band that put out one of the worst EPs I had ever heard. I hadn’t even bothered with the Hazards of Love, which kind of sounds like something the Arcade Fire would come up with.

I couldn’t think of a more perect mindset to go into a show with. My mind was blasted, blown and undone, as only the head of an apathetic can be.

First of, Heartless Bastards opened, and I was delighted to discover that they could be secret members of the Black Mountain Army, if their sound is any indication. It was a happy coincidence, and I was invested as soon as Erika Wennerstrom let those PJ Harvey-esque pipes soar. My favorite music will and always be the stuff you can let slip like the dogs of war in a bar that seems a little too sleepy for your tastes, and my fellow Ohians are now a part of that repetoire.

So that brings us back to the Decemberists. I had been content to give them The Crane Wife for a shark jump, especially after hearing “Valerie Plame” too many damn times. It took about ten minutes into their set, but then I figured it out- they were playing Hazards of Love in its entirety, which accounted for the two additional players upon the stage. So I settled in, and let the epic take me. I’m only just now taking my first real lesson to the album itself, nothing will ever compare to seeing and feeling it live.

While Wife had its threads and themes, the Decemberists had not really visited the realm of heavy consistent concept, at least in terms of making one long opera (Yes, I know they put The Tain (that is on The Tain) to music, but did you?).

The reviews are already out on the album, I know. It’s nothing like any other Decemberist album; comparing it as such is an insult to its sheer audacity and derring-do. It’s a landscape with oases and deserts, Cliffs of Insanity and blissful plains of purple buffalo, cracked crystals and hideous Nothings. It gallops, it stomps, it throws fits, its bones rattle to sublime dust. It’s a leprous healer with an axe to grind, because that chapel ain’t gonna build itself.

It’s an A.

Some bands manage to get to the part in the story where they can throw together a decent set, communicate on that higher level, and give the audience the best night they’ll ever have until they have it again. Other bands get past that part, where they so fully understand what the music is, and that they have less and less to do with the music the higher the audience is lifted; they simply let what they have crafted work for them. The Decemberists made it look easier than a dream.

As if that weren’t enough, they had a second set, something more along the lines of that former band, the one that does what they do with enthusiasm, but might never stride through the cloud deck like the giants do.

So we heard “July, July!”, my all-time favorite song of theirs, which was my only hope for the concert. You can see why I was floored by the experience. They also played “Shankill Butchers”, my second favorite song. I had heard in an interview that Meloy was a drama student, and that it came out in thier shows, so I was waiting a little on that, too. They re-enacted the Battle of Fort Pitt amidst the audience with a less than scrupulous or sensical account of history, halfway through “A Cautionary Tale”. Then got right back onto the stage for the second half with nary a beat missed.

With the song’s final admonition, they left the stage. I expected an encore, given the band’s flair for the dramatic, but was shocked and rocked by what they delivered:

Sadly, that’s the best of the videos. But you get the point.

I would be lying if I said the show didn’t provide an incredibly beautiful counterpoint to what my life is doing down here on the ground. As it goes with all inspiration, it tends to find you, slap you silly and get you imagining the day your head reaches above the clouds. Working towards it is another matter, but then that’s why we have heroes who risk, well, the hazards of love.

Grade:

The Decemberists at the Byham Theater, August 14, 2009: A+

The Decemberists: The Hazards of Love: A

(It’s a difference of seeing a play and reading it)