I am intrigued on how the full rock ensemble will affect the song I had found so impactful in its sorry simplicity. Not as idols, but to share their art as something we can hold and interpret. On stage Big Thief strikes a lovely balance They find a way to play for themselves, to enjoy the art that they are making, while also playing for their audience.
In an interview with Rolling Stone, Lenker makes her stance on how she wants to be received: “I want my music to be a guide to people to get back closer to themselves - not to me” (Berinstein 2022). There’s something about the band, maybe it could be argued that it’s unprofessional, or not streamlined, but it’s the homemade authenticity that makes Big Thief so special.
Guitarist and bassist Buck Meek and Max Oleartchik play sitting on the floor for the second half of the show. Lenker takes the time to ask the lighting tech to lower the lights, dropping the venue into a dusky haze before performing “Ingydar” a song off of her solo album Songs. The punky reprise is satisfyingly unexpected, and reminds the audience how many genres Big Thief is able to maneuver through. Instead of the acoustic guitar weaving through her verses,a hard and sorrowful electric riff breaks them up. “It’s a little bit magic / Like a river of morning geese / In the new warm mountain/ Where the stone face forms and speaks” Lenker’s voice stays the same, breathy, clear, and bewitching as she delivers the lines: The titular track of the album, recorded acoustic, supplemented with weary bass lines and glassy notes that sound as if played from a wind chime is delivered to us live with a darker tone. The dynamic contrast of the songs featured on Dragon is less accentuated in this performance. The album, recorded in 4 locations throughout the United States, keeps a more homogenized rock sound performed live with the full band. The band members hug each other before leaving the stage, breaking before headlining. They harmonize together, her breathy, soft higher register contrasts with and supplements his gravely low tone. The image of my assumption is shattered when she politely thanks the audience (Reese could never), and tells us how honored she is to share the stage with Zimmerman, a musician she draws inspiration from and looks up to. Think Reese from Malcolm in the Middle with a goth streak. The rest of Big Thief accompanies Lenker, who, clad in baggy black with a grown-out bleached buzz cut, looks like the angry teenage brother of this found family. Zimmeran cups the back of Oleartchik’s head in his hand in a sweet gesture between songs, like he’s a grown son of his, before “something extra special, Adrianne helping me out with a song”. He adds a folky touch to a Chinese parable about luck, borrowing Max Oleartchik to play standup bass.
I don’t think the audience realizes how widely known Zimmerman is – David Bowie cited Ten Songs By Tucker Zimmerman to be one of his top ten albums. Tucker Zimmerman is the opener, a grizzled and endearingly disheveled man, who looks like one of my mom’s old river guide friends. For every mullet-ed, multi-pierced, vintage garbed attendee, their counterpart existed in another corner of the venue in a sweatshirt and jeans. After feeling geriatric at at the concert I last attended, Mitski, it was a relief to see some diversity in age and style. It’s interesting to see how this overlap will play out live, with a full band. In an interview I read, and spent an embarrassing amount of time trying and failing to find it, Lenker mentions how she no longer inhibits herself from trying to write “Big Thief Songs” and “Adrianne Lenker Songs”. Before Dragon, a cleaner separation existed between the band and Lenker’s solo work. Great stuff for those of us reluctantly confirmed.īack at the Wiltern, a venue that is a feast for the eyes (lush, art deco detailings) as well as the nose (popcorn smells), I’m curious how the Big Thief Experience will differ. I, too, was enchanted by her chirpy croon, echoing eerily throughout the church, especially during “Sparrow”, a song depicting god’s outcast of mankind at the beginning of Genesis. The pew-crammed audience was captivated by her lone figure, equipped with an acoustic guitar that looked heavy but comfortable in her hands. I saw Adrianne Lenker, the band’s principal songwriter, perform solo at the First Congressional Church of LA two months before the album was released. It’s an album that makes me think of good health. Big Thief released Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You, a 20 song treasure trove, earlier this year.
0 kommentar(er)
