Andrew Bird Ogden Theater February 26, 2009
Last night was the first time I looked down on Andrew Bird. It didn’t seem quite right. Pressed against the balcony railing at the Ogden, a leader among lemmings pushing and stretching toward the cliff, and the sea of people below, I saw the writing on the top of his socks. Red, stark script stitching the white tips of his toes to the tight black cotton that rounded his heels and disappeared into his slacks. All melting into his striped, and patterned, rich burgundy rug; a safe space as misplaced as the man, rectangular against the curves of the stage.
I towered above his gramophone cones and bandmates too, both of which multiply with each tour. This go-round, the long-haired homely fellow who made Bird’s duo with Martin Dosh a trio in 2008 is more manicured and mod. He is leaner; his hair cropped and British. Behind him, now, there’s a new doughy, homely, long-haired fellow, sometimes filling in unnoticed silence with deep pulses from his bass guitar, other times bringing album tracks to life with a clarinet or an alto sax. Always unassuming. As far as I can tell, he’s not so much a band member (that status comes in time) as he’s another piece of equipment. Hi-tech and versatile.
Unlike his accoutrements, Mr. Bird seems to be shrinking. His blazer hangs on his frame, despite precise tailoring, unable (or unwilling) to hide the thinness of his neck or the precise lines of his jaw. But it doesn’t need to. His waifishness suits him. I doubt he eats. I just can’t picture it. Somehow, he seems too dignified. Eating is so human. He is ethereal. Otherworldly. How else could he balance so many rhythms and melodies at once, with grace, making sure that every one got a chance to glimmer in the darkness. And who but a celestial could stretch tenuous to tenuousness with promises of snacks at the apocalypse and convince his dewy-eye Disney bride, to let him tie her wrists with leather.
On his left, always on the left, behind his gold and glitter kit--symbols ringed with bells and other percussives--and flanked by his double-decked keyboard wired for looping, Martin Dosh does his part. Though he’s a genius with sound and rhythm in his own right, he’s been with Andrew Bird for several years now. The first Mr. Bird welcomed to his one man show. Perhaps being part of an Andrew Bird Project is satisfying enough to give up on his own headline, or at least consistently keep him out of Minnesota winters. I could imagine that. More likely, Martin Dosh feels it just as the couple cuddling behind me--being in the presence of genius is narcotic.
But there’s a cost. Mr. Bird no longer plays at the Hi-dive, making poorly mixed recordings and thanking familiar barstaff. There’s too many addicts now. The Hi-dive can’t contain them. No one could be familiar with anyone in this sold-out Ogden show, but no one feels lonely either; each wooed by the intimacy of Mr. Bird’s falsetto and his exaggerated gesturing. For me, it’s the synchronicity of his whistling as he strokes his Glockenspiel. This organic pairing makes sound more whole than it ever could be otherwise. Even symphonies practiced att oxygenating concert halls with devilishly complicated harmonies couldn’t fill out a single note like Mr. Bird and his whistling.
Three encore adaptations later, the first two sans band, as the lights go up, I’m left with a familiar feeling. All things must pass—we fall in love, and out. We lose pets. We move. We grow up. Our hands take on the character our mother’s and our eyes deepen with time as our father’s did. Our hearing becomes less precise. But Andrew Bird’s consummate showmanship will never change, no matter how many venues, states, and seasons wear on it. The snapshots he captures, crisper than any Polaroid ever could and sprinkled into visceral vignettes, change as I do. Still frames in moving pictures--he narrates as a modern day Pan, charismatic as he is enigmatic, who traded a reed flute for electronica and strings and his lasciviousness for eerie politeness. And I will never tire of any of it.
(I couldn't resist).
With much love to the Brothers M.,
V.P.
Friday, February 27, 2009
~Be Clever and Carry a Big Bow~
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