As a longtime Andrew Bird fan, needless to say I was thrilled to hold those tickets again. They looked much like a pair I had held three years prior, nearly to the day. This time too we entered the beautiful Overture theatre, met with the soft curves of the architecture and the warm tones of the dim lighting lining the balconies. Our seats were brilliant.
The Overture Centre, Madison. September 19, 2009.
My party was cheerful and pleased to be there in a gently expectant way; they’d spent the money, hopefully the show would be worth that and my passionate hype. The lights faded away, and the stage came into attentive focus. Here We Go Magic was fun, with an energetic sound that belied their causal stances. Their set finished, so we got drinks. (Happy to be 21 and surrounded by friends.) Soon we were back in our lovely seats, laughing about the couple making out across the theatre. Then the lights again fell away, and Andrew Bird jogged up to his mic, wearing a heavy scarf, a blazer, and belted trousers. Surprised to see shoes over his socks, which might yet have had holes in them. Immediately he began to fill the sizable room with sound, conferring with the stage crew member about the static feedback. The shrill but perfectly pitched whistling soared above us, much like a songbird (coincidentally) flying into the endless dark sky above. His skill with the violin is natural; the time he’s spent with it is always apparent, as if it really isn’t a separate entity; as if he was born to play and has grown to adulthood on the sustenance of the beautiful sounds he can make.
Andrew Bird at the Cobb Performing Arts Centre, Atlanta. June 15, 2009.
The scarf came off early, and the band joined him soon after the set began. The first notes of each song was met with cheers from an audience who has digested every album thoroughly and frequently. I tried not to mouth the words, to let the other members of my group feel the music whichever way worked best for them. As Mr. Bird switched from violin to guitar to glockenspiel to floor loop to vocals, I divided my attention from the wonder on the stage to the wonder on my aunt’s face to my right and the slow but definite acceptance on my friend’s to my left. I wished I could see everyone’s face, that I could feel the beauty of the music through my own senses, and vicariously again through the others’. How do they experience live music versus recorded? This music versus their favourite artist’s? Although I’ve been told that many people don’t experience music quite like I do, I still wonder how hearing and vision could ever be separate. Gorgeous combinations of light and sound rose up to the mezzanine, swirled and speckled and meshed together like the pieces of art hanging down from the ceiling behind the band. The lights flashed across the room; I squinted, and as I did so, the bright magenta light spread until it was all I could see, and the song spread too— it was already all I could hear. Change to a sharp blue. Change to a bright orange. To fresh yellow. To rich purple. Pulsing, dancing, sweeping, pulsing again. Not exactly how I see music, but since it’s related yet not the same, lights at live shows absolutely enhance my experience. I don’t need to close my eyes to let the music wash over me, because it’ll make the lights sing instead.
I looked up to watch the lights flicker over the ceiling, like a pool of coloured water reflecting sunlight. I looked down to watch the incredibly talented musicians, gathered around a mic playing the acoustic instruments as deftly as the electric. Andrew Bird cleared his throat again. The raspy edges of his voice made it that much more visceral, recalling in my own throat the feeling of a temporarily overtaxed voice that hasn’t regained its footing. My aunt knew as well, and she too, I think, felt the ghost of that sensation.
Each song felt invigorated; if I hadn’t known which songs were new and which old, I would’ve been hard pressed to tell. His aural aesthetics have shifted, but nothing he’s written sounds dated (save the wonderful Bowl of Fire records, which could’ve easily happened in the early 20th century). The double encore was well deserved and played with the same warm energy as the rest of the show. This was a night that was unabashedly Bird’s; he welcomed us into the meanderings of his mind, which, as it turns out, is a stunningly graceful and sonorous, yet sensuously disheveled, place to be.
Andrew Bird at the Variety Playhouse, Atlanta. February 4, 2009.
drunkmakingblossom 