Saw Andrew Bird Tuesday nite. I'd been tres excited about this - a concert up here featuring someone I never thought I'd hear in Alaska! It delivered even though he didn't play "Fake Palindromes". (Was it the lack of accompanying tambourine perhaps? He's sick of it, I bet.) Or the one ("Skin Is, My") that used to be my ringtone - waiting for the telephone to ring - bah-ring, bah-RING, bah-ring, bah-ring, bah-ring, bah-ring... Get it.
He was a small man in Sandy Frink sneakers and a tweedy suit coat; a spinning double-gramophone contraption behind him. He played all the instruments, looping like mad, and then his voice. Oh my, his voice live was X times more rich than on the records - big and clear.
When suddenly I swell at concerts, tears coming up and chest tight and all that, I bite my fingers and lock down my toes inside my shoes so as not to gasp, to control too much happening on my face. You know. He played this one number with the lyric "Here we go - mistaking clouds for mountains" and it was a toe clencher, that one. It was the most beautiful song of the night out of a number of a beautiful numbers. I figured I'd come home and download it to listen to over and over.
FOUND!
UPDATE - I found it! Or, Jim did. The song is called "Danse Carribe" and it's on a live recording album, Fingerlings 4, which I've just ordered as a real-live Compact Disc that comes in the post. What's up, 1999?
I believed for the first part of the concert that here is a very obsessive-compulsive individual performing right now - lots of tweaking signals to the sound person, motions for the guitar tuner to come and fix, an apparent insistence that his roadie make sure the spinning double-gramophone always came to rest exactly parallel to the crowd... Plus I'd heard a NPR interview earlier - tales de hours of obsessive violin practice, that sort of thing.
Anyway, at one point he resigns, "I've come all this way..." which translates - everyone shout out your requests. Which they do, as they do. He plays "Measuring Cups' and fucks it up, asking for help from the audience to remember the chorus. So, I had to reassess - probably not OCD. I did want him to be a mad weird genius all the way, though, quirks and brilliance. The kinda weirdo who writes epic best sellers without titles, that he's yet to record, only plays live, preferring to break your heart one live performance at a time, not making it available for digital over and over and over.
I've thought about it and I think I can get behind that single-mindedness. It's museum quality.
5 comments:
Thank you for finding THAT SONG! I was at the Anchorage show, too, and also loved the "mistaking clouds for mountains" song.
Great review!
I shoulda updated this entry after receiving the CD in the mail... Well, here you go - while that song is indeed on this (wonderfully enjoyable) record, alas it hasn't any words for it is strictly an instrumental version. Guess the search goes on then.
Maybe you already found this version, but if not, here you go:
http://www.archive.org/details/andrewbird2011-01-28.early.dr7.flac16
It's not the greatest sound quality, but a nice memory of the song until a professional recording is found!
Here's my cover of the new version of Danse Caribe that will be on the new album!!
http://soundcloud.com/finneganshanahan/danse-caribe
Finnegan, thank you for sharing this! I so enjoyed listening to your version that I listened twice.
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