The Decemberists are a band that I have waited aeons to see. It seems every time they come to town I'm gone or otherwise indisposed, so finally after all the waiting, I managed to see them at the Greek Theater in the hills above LA.
The Greek is a venue that I have a particular affinity for. It's scenic outdoor venue and when I saw Wilco there years ago the sound was absolutely impeccable. I had always wondered if it was the Wilco's sound guy or the venue that made it so good. On friday I finally got my answer. Both. Before going any further I should mention that I had three audio engineers with me at the time. I had set up this concert and venue as "the sound is going to be amazing!!!" From my perspective the sound was ok for the first half and by the end it was pretty good. I hope they don't think I was exaggerating. I was surprised actually at the how bad the sound was considering I knew what it could be like. If I didn't have such a good experience before I probably would have felt it was pretty good.
On a sad note, The Decemberist are currently touring without Jenny Conlee. She is currently taking time off to fight breast cancer. Her presence was greatly missed at the show and I wish her the best. To cover her parts a multi-instrumentalist Sara Watkins (Nickle Creek) was brought in. It would seem that they stayed away from the older material possibly because of Jenny's absence. As a result I felt as if the show was more a Colin Meloy solo show where he played some new Decemberists songs.
I felt that the bands energy for most of the evening was low, and most of the songs they played were a bit mellow. Their antics were limited to Colin making a few jokes between songs. One particular anecdote was talking about the "worst song he ever wrote that he now has to play at every show." He then played a song about "Dracula's Daughter" which lead into "O Valencia!." It makes you wonder if they're getting a bit tired of playing what I can only assume on radio stations out of LA is a hit. Sadly there is a huge gap in what gets played on the radio out here. Don't get me wrong there's always "Morning Becomes Eclectic," but it hasn't been the same since Nic Harcourt left. One new song they did well was January Hymn. I haven't figured out what it is about that song I like, I just do.
So during their first encore the band came out and played the infamous "Mariner's Revenge Song." This song really showed how fun the band can be even if they were kinda low key most of the night. There was pageantry, audience participation and animated russian style dancing. At least I think it was Russian... They are the Decemberists and all.
According to my friend Gabrielle I didn't get ripped off because they played it. All in all a good (albeit moderately disappointing) show, but I look forward to seeing them again when Jenny's back and feeling 100%. Here's wishing her a speedy recovery.
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Here's an additional video from their first encore. Proving once again that the drummers are always the weirdos of the band.
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