{"id":425,"date":"2009-06-07T14:48:48","date_gmt":"2009-06-07T18:48:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mpomy.com\/?p=425"},"modified":"2009-06-07T14:48:48","modified_gmt":"2009-06-07T18:48:48","slug":"decemberists-at-the-tower-last-night","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/mpomy.com\/?p=425","title":{"rendered":"Decemberists at the Tower last night"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"decemberists4\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Em and I made our way to Upper Darby via the Market-Frankford elevated train to see the Decemberists<\/a> at the Tower Theater.\u00a0 This is a lovely old venue that I find to be somewhat inconvenient becuase it’s outside the center of town, but parking is still very difficult.\u00a0 Fortunately, SEPTA goe right there.\u00a0 The upside – no need for a designated driver.<\/p>\n

So I’m working off a hangover at the super hip coffee shop in Collingswood, NJ, while Em meets with a new yoga instructor.\u00a0 What, you’ve never heard of Collingswood?\u00a0 My point exactly.\u00a0 The hope had been to prepare a Blogerantz<\/a> entry with a tasty tidbit from the Decemberists promo tour for Hazards of Love, namely a stop at KCRW to play some of the best bits from the album.\u00a0 Unfortunately, upload capacity is capped pretty low here, so it will have to wait.<\/p>\n

It was a great show.\u00a0 They performed the entire album front to back, a-la Genesis with The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway in 74-75.\u00a0 That portion of the program was absolutely uninterrupted performance for about an hour.\u00a0 Highlights came from the guest performances of Becky Stark<\/a> and the incredible Shara Worden<\/a>, who are both on the record, even though they have bands of their own.\u00a0 We were particularly taken by Worden, who stole the show with her intense vocals and outrageous dance and movement.<\/p>\n

Both guests stepped away for most of the second set, and that took some of the air out of the balloon, but they came back for a rousing rendition of Heart’s ‘Crazy on You’.\u00a0 I try not to get caught up with gimmickery of the BIG COVER.\u00a0 We’ve paid a good bit of money to see what this band can do.\u00a0 Can they bring the energy and originality of their studio work to the stage.\u00a0 The cover is often a cheap shot, especially for a band that has several albums worth of material.\u00a0 But it did feature the girls on vocals, so it was nice to have them front and center again.<\/p>\n

This is not to take anything away form the Decemberists-proper.\u00a0 These guys have probably taken a lot of heat for the excessive literary nature of their lyrics.\u00a0 Here’s the Village Voice from 2006<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Tonight demarcates the other side of the hipster spectrum: the familiar world of self-pitying white people looking for reasons to be unhappy, or at least suspicious, despite incalculable birthright advantages. The Decemberists look down from the top of this mountain, trying to make a living off of blas\u00e9 malaise.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And that’s not the nastiest of it.\u00a0 I wouldn’t be suprised if that was a pervasive criticism, but, you know what?\u00a0 After a large cup of coffee, I feel like telling The Village Voice to STFU.\u00a0 Better than that, however, is the fact that the band has become better, tighter, more focused and more adventurous in its dark tone.\u00a0 If the Voice didn’t like it back in ’06, I’ll be they really hate it now.\u00a0 The show hits Radio City on June 10.\u00a0 We’ll see what they have to say then.<\/p>\n

The music is tremendous – direct and simple.\u00a0 There are no highly technical flourishes that often burden concept albums.\u00a0 That means that the band can concentrate, not on getting it right, but on bringing the passion and the power.\u00a0 And that’s just what happend.\u00a0 The cresendo of ‘Won’t Want For Love’ came across about two hundred times stronger live.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Em and I made our way to Upper Darby via the Market-Frankford elevated train to see the Decemberists at the Tower Theater.\u00a0 This is a lovely old venue that I find to be somewhat inconvenient becuase it’s outside the center … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[23],"tags":[400,100,382,399,383],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/mpomy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/mpomy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/mpomy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mpomy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mpomy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=425"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/mpomy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":430,"href":"http:\/\/mpomy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425\/revisions\/430"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/mpomy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mpomy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mpomy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}