If there is one band that is ever evolving it's Horse Feathers. The moniker much like Bon Iver, Great Lake Swimmers and Badly Drawn Boy is built around one guy, with a cast of rotating characters. For Horse Feathers that guy is Justin Ringle. What is unique about this band is that the additional musicians have a huge impact on the overall sound. When listening to the albums there was little percussion, but having a percussionist at the show resulted in more upbeat versions of songs. Having a talented female vocalist resulted in a lot of thoughtful down home harmonies. Not having a dedicated guitar and banjo player meant that Justin had to pick one of the two on each song. Even with that limitation, the band managed a full engulfing sound that only can be achieved through the pairing of a full string section with Justin's uniquely mornful longing voice.
Before the show, I found myself debating if I really wanted to schlep up to LA. It had been a long day and I was fading pretty quick. I knew that the band had a huge collection of mellow music.
Having just been to a very unnecessarily mellow show (diazepam please), I was worried I would zonk out during. Sufficed to say, I was pleasantly surprised. They hit it hard from the start and kept the energy level up the entire night.
Playing with a modified trap kit allowed for more energetic interpretations of songs. As a result some were even a bit danceable. There were also greater dynamics in the songs (both volume and energy)which can be a bit monotonic on the records. This is exactly what one hopes for out of live show. True artistic expression in performance. Recording is about capturing ideas for a song to it's fullest, but in doing multiple takes you tend to lose a lot of the energy and emotion.
At a few points during the show, the violinists played saws. It was a very cool "how'd they make that sound in the studio" moment. It's nice to see people bring alternative instruments to the stage filling in sounds that are easy to drop when on the road.
Coincidentally their song Cascades is nothing like the Oliver Nelson song Cascades.
Not sure the reason, but Justin seems to have inexplicably been rockin what I would consider snow boots all night. Something even a New Englander wouldn't wear in the summer. My only theory is that he likes the tone for stomping or had some clam diggin planned.
All in all I was very happy I got my ass off the couch and drove up to the show. It's very encouraging as a musician to see bands experimenting with songs long ago recorded creating new and excellent live renditions. My only complaint was that they didn't play a long enough set!
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* Side Note: I had the chance to say hi to Justin and thank him for a great show. At that point I noticed he was drenched to the bone. I had thought the lights were much brighter than when I had seen Those Darlins there. I guess there is a reason why they were lower then. Nothin less sexy for a girl band than to be sweatin like a pig. That said the Echo really needs to find a happy medium between playing in the dark and an Indian sweat lodge.
