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I... where do I even start with this? I'm not sure I'll be properly off the concert high for another day. So, um, from the beginning!
The trip there was fairly uneventful. In the tunnel between the red and blue lines, some guy was either offering me sex or weed, and I'm not sure which, but it kind of freaked me out. Other than that, though... uneventful. Until I got off the blue line and discovered that the Logan Square Theatre's directions of "across the street from the station" were actually a lot more complicated than it seemed. Not only were there about five streets at the intersection, there was also a second station. Oh, and in the end (after wandering around with about ten other people who were equally lost), it was actually across a giant square with a statue in the middle. And, had it not been for a sign on the corner, I never ever would've found it. As it turns out, Logan Square Theatre's yet another one of those mysterious Chicago surprise-I'm-on-the-second-floor places. I was also expecting someplace bigger, but I am very, very happy it wasn't just because I like smaller crowds and more personal settings and really, from here on out I could just fill the entry with hearts up to the text limit. Because it was a pretty little theatre, and the house music was good and the crowd was friendly and nonpushy (with only one exception this time, as opposed to five or more, and no creepy anime fangirls). My only unhappiness lies in the fact that there were no paper tickets. Everyone came in, showed their IDs, and was crossed off of a list. In a way, it was very cool, since it felt like being on the guest list. But I have nothing to show for the concert! If I'd had money, I would've bought a t-shirt or something. I should've, but unfortunately the concert was over late. So now I'll force myself to buckle down and talk about it...
The concert didn't start until 9:30. I'm not sure why I didn't register this as doomish for getting back, but that's beside the point... late concert, yes, yay. The opening band, the Occidental Brothers, actually took the stage and warmed up their instruments while the house music was still on, which was rather bizarre in a kind of casual and endearing way. At the time, I had no idea why they'd be opening for Andrew Bird. At first glance, it'd seem on par to wondering why Alasdair Roberts' booking agent subjected him to opening for the Decemberists (totally the wrong sort of crowd). From their website: "The group plays classic African popular and dance music of the 1960’s, specializing in Congolese rumba and “dry guitar”, and touching West African Highlife, Chimurenga, S. African Marabi, and some other gems from the great continent." In reality, this boils down to something almost but not entirely unlike jazz (boiling it down isn't a proper thing to do, though). And they were good. Really downright good musicians, and I wish the crowd had been loose enough to dance properly. I think we would have, really, if they hadn't been the opener (because if we danced too much, we could lose our spots). Honestly, they got a lot of dance out of us anyway, considering how the crowd was the rest of the night. But anyway, needless to say I was incredibly impressed. They are one of the few opening acts I've seen that I wouldn't have minded having come back out for an encore. (And I saw Guster open for BNL, and OK Go open for TMBG, so... these guys know how to work a crowd properly.) Also, they're a rather hard band to follow, energy and musicianship-wise. Their appeal is definitely in being seen live, though. (Oh, and to answer the "Why were they opening?" question, they're Andrew Bird's favourite current band in Chicago.)
So I was actually somewhat worried when Andrew Bird finally took the stage. Actually... his drummer/keyboardist took the stage first, and played with the sampler for a good few minutes sans introduction, which I think confused 3/4 of the crowd, myself included. Then Andrew Bird finally wandered onto the stage, looking vaguely disoriented and, well, insane. Let it stand from this point forward that Andrew Bird is insane. I'm not sure I could have known better than to worry about him, but I should have known better, because as soon as he finished tearing through A Nervous Tick Motion of the Head to the Left and Measuring Cups, going all squinty-eyed while singing and shaking his head back and forth and just being so insanely into the music, I realized that the point wasn't to be able to sing along (which is impossible with the amount of improvising and rearranging he does with his songs live), but to stand there in awe of this shaggy-haired insane whistling man as he played his violin like a ukulele and then shredded his bow on it, only to suddenly become serious a few seconds later. Part of the game for me between songs became figuring out which of his actions were his stage persona, and which were himself poking through, or whether he was just that insane. I just... honestly, I don't have the words to describe it. He's just amazing live. For the longest time (well, four or five songs) I couldn't figure out how he ever settled himself down enough to record anything in the studio. Judging by the albums, you'd expect someone calmer... until you think about how it's basically one guy doing all the work. Yet you don't expect him to switch instruments in the middle of the song and run back and forth and occasionally self-consciously yet adorably miss his entrances because of a problem with the guitar strap and... yeah. Wow. The best metaphor I have is that he wasn't just playing the music, he was making it again for us. (Which is a rather dorky way of putting it, and I apologize.) I realized once he moved into some of the new material he was practicing on us that the apparent insanity comes from him being way too familiar with the songs. Once he had to make an effort to remember how things went, it calmed down just a little, though it really didn't take away from the general aura of amazing. And by calmed down, I mostly mean "wasn't torn to shreds and rebuilt similarly" like most of the songs that I knew were. I'm pretty sure that insane energy is just always there. I think in any other situation, not being able to sing along would've annoyed me, but he was a good enough showman... it forced you to pay attention, and paying attention was well worth it.
Oh, and Richmond Woman played by Andrew alone? Amazing, and possibly the most insane behavior of the night, with him switching between conversational and screaming and whistling and singing. It was only the violin, but of course it was recorded and looped and... he basically almost destroyed his bow on that song alone.
I didn't want to leave. I didn't want it to be over. It's been a looong time since I've had that kind of fun at a concert, and I really wish I'd had someone to drag along to enjoy it with me.
I also wish tickets weren't sold out for tomorrow night, because I'd totally go again, and find someone to bring along this time. Even if it'd mean I'd be horrifically behind on my work.
In short... awesome, awesome concert. Gonna be happy about that for a while now. Yay! And if any of you ever have a chance to see Andrew Bird live, by all means GO! I really don't think you'd regret it at all, even if you don't like difficult-to-classify indie-folk with violining and whistling and Andrew Bird being an insane hyper person. Though how you could not like that is beyond me.
The trip there was fairly uneventful. In the tunnel between the red and blue lines, some guy was either offering me sex or weed, and I'm not sure which, but it kind of freaked me out. Other than that, though... uneventful. Until I got off the blue line and discovered that the Logan Square Theatre's directions of "across the street from the station" were actually a lot more complicated than it seemed. Not only were there about five streets at the intersection, there was also a second station. Oh, and in the end (after wandering around with about ten other people who were equally lost), it was actually across a giant square with a statue in the middle. And, had it not been for a sign on the corner, I never ever would've found it. As it turns out, Logan Square Theatre's yet another one of those mysterious Chicago surprise-I'm-on-the-second-floor places. I was also expecting someplace bigger, but I am very, very happy it wasn't just because I like smaller crowds and more personal settings and really, from here on out I could just fill the entry with hearts up to the text limit. Because it was a pretty little theatre, and the house music was good and the crowd was friendly and nonpushy (with only one exception this time, as opposed to five or more, and no creepy anime fangirls). My only unhappiness lies in the fact that there were no paper tickets. Everyone came in, showed their IDs, and was crossed off of a list. In a way, it was very cool, since it felt like being on the guest list. But I have nothing to show for the concert! If I'd had money, I would've bought a t-shirt or something. I should've, but unfortunately the concert was over late. So now I'll force myself to buckle down and talk about it...
The concert didn't start until 9:30. I'm not sure why I didn't register this as doomish for getting back, but that's beside the point... late concert, yes, yay. The opening band, the Occidental Brothers, actually took the stage and warmed up their instruments while the house music was still on, which was rather bizarre in a kind of casual and endearing way. At the time, I had no idea why they'd be opening for Andrew Bird. At first glance, it'd seem on par to wondering why Alasdair Roberts' booking agent subjected him to opening for the Decemberists (totally the wrong sort of crowd). From their website: "The group plays classic African popular and dance music of the 1960’s, specializing in Congolese rumba and “dry guitar”, and touching West African Highlife, Chimurenga, S. African Marabi, and some other gems from the great continent." In reality, this boils down to something almost but not entirely unlike jazz (boiling it down isn't a proper thing to do, though). And they were good. Really downright good musicians, and I wish the crowd had been loose enough to dance properly. I think we would have, really, if they hadn't been the opener (because if we danced too much, we could lose our spots). Honestly, they got a lot of dance out of us anyway, considering how the crowd was the rest of the night. But anyway, needless to say I was incredibly impressed. They are one of the few opening acts I've seen that I wouldn't have minded having come back out for an encore. (And I saw Guster open for BNL, and OK Go open for TMBG, so... these guys know how to work a crowd properly.) Also, they're a rather hard band to follow, energy and musicianship-wise. Their appeal is definitely in being seen live, though. (Oh, and to answer the "Why were they opening?" question, they're Andrew Bird's favourite current band in Chicago.)
So I was actually somewhat worried when Andrew Bird finally took the stage. Actually... his drummer/keyboardist took the stage first, and played with the sampler for a good few minutes sans introduction, which I think confused 3/4 of the crowd, myself included. Then Andrew Bird finally wandered onto the stage, looking vaguely disoriented and, well, insane. Let it stand from this point forward that Andrew Bird is insane. I'm not sure I could have known better than to worry about him, but I should have known better, because as soon as he finished tearing through A Nervous Tick Motion of the Head to the Left and Measuring Cups, going all squinty-eyed while singing and shaking his head back and forth and just being so insanely into the music, I realized that the point wasn't to be able to sing along (which is impossible with the amount of improvising and rearranging he does with his songs live), but to stand there in awe of this shaggy-haired insane whistling man as he played his violin like a ukulele and then shredded his bow on it, only to suddenly become serious a few seconds later. Part of the game for me between songs became figuring out which of his actions were his stage persona, and which were himself poking through, or whether he was just that insane. I just... honestly, I don't have the words to describe it. He's just amazing live. For the longest time (well, four or five songs) I couldn't figure out how he ever settled himself down enough to record anything in the studio. Judging by the albums, you'd expect someone calmer... until you think about how it's basically one guy doing all the work. Yet you don't expect him to switch instruments in the middle of the song and run back and forth and occasionally self-consciously yet adorably miss his entrances because of a problem with the guitar strap and... yeah. Wow. The best metaphor I have is that he wasn't just playing the music, he was making it again for us. (Which is a rather dorky way of putting it, and I apologize.) I realized once he moved into some of the new material he was practicing on us that the apparent insanity comes from him being way too familiar with the songs. Once he had to make an effort to remember how things went, it calmed down just a little, though it really didn't take away from the general aura of amazing. And by calmed down, I mostly mean "wasn't torn to shreds and rebuilt similarly" like most of the songs that I knew were. I'm pretty sure that insane energy is just always there. I think in any other situation, not being able to sing along would've annoyed me, but he was a good enough showman... it forced you to pay attention, and paying attention was well worth it.
Oh, and Richmond Woman played by Andrew alone? Amazing, and possibly the most insane behavior of the night, with him switching between conversational and screaming and whistling and singing. It was only the violin, but of course it was recorded and looped and... he basically almost destroyed his bow on that song alone.
I didn't want to leave. I didn't want it to be over. It's been a looong time since I've had that kind of fun at a concert, and I really wish I'd had someone to drag along to enjoy it with me.
I also wish tickets weren't sold out for tomorrow night, because I'd totally go again, and find someone to bring along this time. Even if it'd mean I'd be horrifically behind on my work.
In short... awesome, awesome concert. Gonna be happy about that for a while now. Yay! And if any of you ever have a chance to see Andrew Bird live, by all means GO! I really don't think you'd regret it at all, even if you don't like difficult-to-classify indie-folk with violining and whistling and Andrew Bird being an insane hyper person. Though how you could not like that is beyond me.
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WOO and YAY for awesometacular concerts!
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