| Andrew Bird @ The Cedar |
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| Written by Kyle Matteson | |
| Monday, December 17, 2007 at 02:18 PM | |
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For a show that was only announced Wednesday afternoon and went onsale the following morning, a faithful of about 400 Bird watchers (i know, my eyes rolled even typing that) showed up on a frigid Sunday afternoon for an intimate show by Andrew and his band of talented Twin CIties musicians. Andrew noted early on that the Cedar was the same place where he and Martin Dosh first played together in June of 2006 (according to his math about 250+ shows ago, 136 in 2007 alone), as well as the first place he saw Jeremy Ylvisaker play with his band Red Start leading to being asked to join Andrew's band. Andrew started the show off all by his lonesome with "MX Missles" which, according to him, was the first time it had been played in over a year. Following "Missles" up with two more solo songs: "Why?," which Andrew claimed always gets him in the mood for a show, and a great cover of The Handsome Family's "The Giant of Illinois." Martin Dosh, Jermey Ylvisaker, & Haley Bonar then joined in for three songs off this years Armchair Apocrypha, "Fiery Crash," "Spare Oh's" which was prefaced by a story about how the surreal lyrics are actually true, and lastly "Plasticities." After playing the fairly obscure "Water Jet Cilice," also known as "Self-Torture," an outtake from Armchairs only available via eMusic, Andrew and band treated the audience to four brand new songs off his upcoming album that should see the light of day sometime in 2008. The first new song, currently titled "Fits and Dizzy Spells," was a great uptempo rocker and probably the strongest of the bunch so far. "Section 8 City," whose title is a play on David Bowie's "Suffragette City" which Andrew used to hear the lyrics as "Something Gets In It," was a slow yet melancholy number. "Tenuousness" (or "Ten You Us Ness" which is how Andrew seemed to pronounce it) was fairly midtempo featuring the lyric "Axes and access," followed by "A Non Animal," which Andrew has been playing for the last month or so on tour. "A Non Animal" is one of Andrew's most epic songs to date featuring a spacey guitar riff as it builds slowly before erupting into a wall of sound collage. If the new songs are any indication of how great the rest of the new album will be, we're all in for a treat. After the barrage of brand new songs, Haley Bonar came back on stage to sing on "Lull" from Weather Systems. Unlike Saturday night, which humorously took Andrew four or five tries of the intro before he let the band continue, they nailed it on the first take. "Scythian Empires" followed, featuring the fingerpicking intro of Jeremy that Andrew had talked about earlier in the show. The slow original version of "Dark Matter," which Andrew originally debuted in-studio on 89.3 The Current (take a listen here) brought the main set to a close but Andrew quickly came back out for an encore of "The Happy Birthday Song" (thanks Andrew!). While the show was almost an hour shorter than the previous night at the Guthrie, likely due to each band member playing a song of their own, it was still a fantastic 105-minute set chock full of brand new songs and old favorites that left us all wanting even more.
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| Last Updated: Thursday, December 27, 2007 at 03:32 PM |
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