The Decemberists last visited Grand Rapids back in September. How they chose our humble burg for a stop when they had skipped Detroit that time around I’ll never know. The venue then was a tiny basement theatre on the campus of Calvin College and the stage was barely big enough to contain them. But we must have made a good impression, because they’re back again, thanks in part to the lovely people at Vertigo Records. This time around, it’s the Intersection, once referred to as “the humungodome” by a self-concious singer of a band (Sloan) unfortunate enough to draw a very small crowd. Colin Meloy and company had much better luck, and the place seemed at near capacity. Grand Rapids isn’t exactly on the cutting edge of culture, but if there’s one thing we got, it’s throngs of white indie kids, and this show was the talk of the coffee shop set. But The Decemberists’ appeal is by no means narrowly focused, and a quite a few aging hipsters (myself included) and even a few professorial types were in attendance.
The opening act served its purpose of giving everyone something to look at while I ordered drinks, and were off the stage shortly after my arrival. From what I heard at the bar, I hadn’t missed much. After a pleasantly brief interval, the main act was ready to perform.
Then began the whale sounds. A drummer who is not Rachel Blumberg (who I guess is concentrating now on her other band, Norfolk and Western) took to the unlit stage and unleashed on the toms as the rest of the band came out. Begin The Infanta.
It is my opinion that The Decemberists are first a studio band, with a specialty for the sad sap stuff that doesn’t really translate to a rockin’ live experience, but tonight they’re keeping the tempo up, and they manage to recreate the arrangements from their records quite adequately. The stage set up looks something akin to the band room in high school and this is a good thing. You like accordian? check. Standup bass? check. Violin? Check. Steel guitar? Check. Xylophone? Check. Banjo? Check. Mandolin? Yup. That cool little blowy-keyboardy-thingy? That’s here too. Oh yeah, and tamborines. One of which flew into the audience for some lucky fan to cherish forever.
The focus tonight is the new record, Picaresque (look it up), and nearly every song on the album gets its due. Of course highlights would be the bouncing “The Sporting Life,” and “16 Military Wives.” Songs from “Her Majesty. . .” included “Los Angeles, I’m Yours,” “Myla Goldberg,” “The Soldiering Life,” and “The Chimbley Sweep.” A pleasant surprise was hearing newly added(?) violinist and vocalist Petra Haden take center stage for a beautiful vocal number I thought I half recognized, providing a poignant pallette cleanser in between cheeky servings of dramatic flair courtesy of Colin and the rest of the band. One such example was a laughable guitar duel between Colin and Chris Funk, which subsequently broke into “Hava Nagila,” to which we danced, of course. At one point, the entire audience, the hundreds of us, were all squatting. Later, we were called on to make the sound of people being eaten by a whale when we saw the super secret Decemberists signal. Mr. Meloy was very specific on this point, and wanted not only screams, but moans, and cries for mothers, and whatnot. He seemed to be quite pleased with the audience’s performance.
On record, the Decemberists bring an earnestness to the most fantastic of tales, but on stage, it’s clear that the band is enjoying sharing them.
