Colin Meloy(former high school French Club President) and the rest of the Decemberists put on a fantastic show at The Metropolis in Montreal on Sunday night. Getting across the border was a bit of a bother but with a stomach full of great Sushi and in the midst of a group of very cool, interesting people we arrived at the venue in plenty of time. In true Decemberists style, the hall was filled with the sounds of Peter and the Wolf as we collected drinks and merchandise before making our way to the floor.
Let me take a moment to say that the Metropolis is a great venue. Nice sound and not a bad seat in the house. All three shows that I've attended since moving north have been in very cool spaces. You can tell from the picture above that the Decemberist's stage set was decidedly Asian flavored. It's nice to see that the band has put some thought into every aspect of the show.
The set list was dead on. They kicked it off with something from each album before playing the bulk of their new release The Crane Wife and then finished up with a new track and some old favorites. While Castaways is still my favorite album the new offering is a great solid effort. The Decemberist have managed to keep their string of interesting and engaging albums alive.
The band's energy was amazing. Having never really seen them(across a field while waiting for the Arcade Fire at ACL) I expected the show to be a little more sedate. Colin makes a great frontman, engaging the crowd, ironically rocking out and making ample use of his high school level French. The crowd seemed to like the "crooked French-Canadian" line from July! July! Above you can see Colin singing into a fan's cell phone. He also grabbed a few cameras from fans and took pictures from the stage before handing them back.
The band also acted out a battle between the red coats the huganots and the Indians during a break in the song "A Cautionary Song". You can see the new member Leslie in front of the mallet held by Chris, They were right there beside us. Overall it was another great concert experience in a city that I am beginning to like more and more. A big thanks to False45th for the ride(I owe you gas money) and Bill and Emily from Candleblog for the company.
Download - The Decemberists - July! July! - from Castaways & Cut-Outs
Download - The Decemberists - The Perfect Crime #2 - from The Crane Wife
Candleblog has a short post on the show.
False 45th took some good video that I'm sure will be posted soon.
I took a pretty decent video of A Cautionary Tale that is too big for youtube, any suggestions?
I was introduced to the band Uncle Tupelo through the CD No Alternative, a benefit CD for some aids charity. I bought the album in the midst of my R.E.M. crazy because Pavement had contributed the track The Unseen Power of the Picket Fence, a song about R.E.M. The disc was packed with some of the biggest "college radio" bands of the time(was anyone using the term indie) like Mathew Sweet, Buffalo Tom, Soundgarden, American Music Club, Dinosaur Jr, Urge Overkill etc. It also contains what would become my favorite Smashing Pumpkins song of all time, Glynis. Anyway Uncle Tupelo has a great tune called Effigy on the compilation that became one of my favorite songs on the disc. Why i didn't immediately go out and buy every Uncle Tupelo album i could find is one of those things i can't quite remember. By the time i followed up on the sound that made Effigy so great i was fully aware that the band had broken up and so i ended up buying SonVolt's Trace and later Wilco's AM. I'm sure there is a musical moral to the story but I'll skip it and leave you with a couple of MP3's from it.
