I Know CoMo » Music

Avett Brothers Fill The Missouri Theater With Energy

como1 — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 16:34:54 +0000

By Beth Hoag
The night started with the opening band the Low Anthem. Playing in almost the same style as the Avett’s, the Low Anthem combined melodic melodies with sounds of upright bass, banjo and guitar. Anthem’s members also moved constantly around the stage playing instruments some of which were hard to indentify. Most impressive was the point near the end of one of their songs in which they asked members of the audience to call someone else in the audience and put their phones on speaker. The whole auditorium filled up with noises similar to what a cricket would make. The Low Anthem made a perfect opening act to the high energy of the Avett’s.
From the first notes on the stage the Avett Bros captured an energy that would remain throughout the entire performance. Mixing their folk-like tunes with dance-like motions from the players kept the audience wanting to dance. The stage was first set with a white background with teardrop shaped symbols. This background changed colors with the music sung. Purples, blues, reds and even oranges flashed across the stage mixing colors with the emotions felt by the music. Playing both old and new songs, you could see so many true fans knowing the words to everything.
Towards the middle of the performance, the screen lifted when the Avett’s played their title song off of their newest record, “I and Love and You.” For those not familiar with this song, the chorus sings “Ahh Brooklyn, Brooklyn take me in. Are you in the shape I’m in? My hands they shake my head t spins. Ahh Brooklyn, Brooklyn take me in.” As soon as the first Brooklyn was sung, the background lifted revealing the Brooklyn Bridge with a shot of New York in the distance. The lyrics seemed to take the audience right to the scene in the picture and straight to Brooklyn itself.
The energy felt from being transported into the music last all through the end of the performance when the Avett’s came back for a full encore with the audience standing up and dancing practically the whole time. This concert was proof that there is nothing like good music to make you happy and brighten the days of everyone who can hear it.

Show Review: The Decemberists

admin — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 19:07:14 +0000

by Gwen Ragno

When: Oct 7, 2009, 8 pm
Where: The Blue Note

I’d be willing to bet that even someone who has never heard a Decemberists record before would have enjoyed this show. It was supposed to take place outside The Blue Note on Ninth Street but ended up being moved indoors, so that was a little disappointing. I was also a little wary when I heard that for this tour the Decemberists were mostly just going to play through their newest album, The Hazards of Love, because I’d never heard the album before. As it turned out, though, going to the concert was the best first-listen I could have asked for. The Hazards of Love is an album-long folk-rock fantasy ballad — and nobody does folk-rock fantasy like the Decemberists.

The Hazards of Love part of the show was less a concert and more a theatrical production – complete with story arcs, repeated musical motifs and good vs. evil. The stage was constantly flooded with colored lights – lots of red and green for the darker pieces, blue and white for the love songs – and the backdrop draped with long columns of gauzy material that soaked up the light and made it look like the band were playing in a dark, spooky forest. It was a bit difficult to follow the story in a concert setting, but I enjoyed it anyway, and I imagine that it’s easier to follow if you have heard the album first.

Two guest vocalists are touring with the Decemberists for The Hazards of Love, and they both did an amazing job. Becky Stark from Lavendar Diamond plays Margaret, a love-struck damsel who gets pregnant and imprisoned over the course of the story. She wore a wispy white gown and danced with slow, sweeping movements, smiling serenely as she sang. Shara Worden of My Brightest Diamond played the perfect evil queen, her dark, smoky vocals backed up by pounding power chords. She has an amazing voice (I found out later that she is opera-trained so it makes sense), and the crowd definitely appreciated it – every time Worden came forward to sing her part she was greeted by wild cheers.

The songs of Hazards of Love all flowed into one another, with no breaks or chit-chat in between. In fact, Colin Meloy didn’t say a word to the audience until the end. After playing through Hazards, the band took a short break then came back to the stage to play some of their more familiar, folksy tunes. The crowd loved it, clapping and stomping along, and you could tell that the band were having a great time too. Meloy was much more chatty this time around, and even pulled some of the goofy antics the band’s live acts are known for.

To everyone’s delight, Colin Meloy at one point jumped into the crowd, still holding his guitar, and crowd-surfed a lap around the dance floor as the band continued to jam onstage. Guitarist Chris Funk then followed suit, somehow without losing his hat, and then bassist Nate Query. Jenny Conlee declined, despite Meloy’s and the crowd’s urging, but instead played a “ripping solo” on the accordion. Meloy later commented that we were literally the most supportive people he’d ever met. Later, for “The Chimbley Sweep”, he shushed the crowd to silence again and got everyone to kneel down for the beginning of the song. Apparently he did the same thing at Austin City Limits last week, but it was still pretty fun.

Overall, it was a great show, and despite my reservations, I’m very glad that I went. As a casual fan I thoroughly enjoyed myself, even though they only played two songs that I could sing along to. A guy standing near me (yes I eavesdrop at concerts, who doesn’t?) who mentioned that he had never really listened to them before seemed to be digging it too. If you’d like to listen to The Hazards of Love, the Decemberists have some of it streaming on their website. I encourage you to check out the tracks with the Queen. The Rake’s Song is also great – funny in a dark sort of way.

Note: I didn’t get to catch the opening act, Laura Veirs, but if you did please feel free to comment and let everyone know how it was. Also, if you happened to get any photos of the show, especially of the crowd-surfing, we’d love to put them up on the site! Just e-mail us at iknowcomo@gmail.com.

Bluebird Preview Show @ The Blue Note

admin — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 18:40:14 +0000

Local bands Bockman and John Henry and the Engine are performing a free show at The Blue Note on Friday, Sept. 18, 2009 at 8:30 p.m. The show is promoted as a preview for the Bluebird Music and Arts Festival, which takes place in Columbia October 16-17.

More about:
Bockman
John Henry
Bluebird

Meet the local band: Al Holliday and the Lucky Stars

admin — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 19:42:42 +0000

Meet Al Holliday and the Lucky Stars, a local band from Columbia, Missouri. Al Holliday, Neil Ghanti, Ian Beiersdorf and Rock Gremillion have been rocking CoMo bars and house parties for about two years now, and are still going strong. Video footage is from their performance at the Forge & Vine on 7th Street on Sunday, Sept. 6. To hear more and find out when the next scheduled gig is, visit the band’s MySpace page

Video by Gwen Ragno for www.iknowcomo.com