Andrew Bird + Woodpigeon, Bristol Trinity Centre (06/06/12). Originally published in 247 Magazine.
The back of the stage is festooned with a large, plastic, spinning
gramophone – with a mascot monkey perched on top. Peculiar perhaps, but
anyone accustomed to Andrew Bird’s singular, lustrous baroque pop
immediately feels at home. Six albums into his fruitful upsurge of a
solo career (Break It Yourself debuted at no. 10 on the Billboards),
tonight Bird offers a truly assorted, partly retrograde set, and as he
later intones on Desperation Breeds, one chock-a-block with “peculiar
incantations”.
But first on strides a hirsute Mark Hamilton, of Canadian folk outfit
Woodpigeon (clad in some kind of obfuscating head garment); a brilliant
crimson acoustic-electric in hand, he begins to interlace echelons of
guitar loops with his dulcet, hushed, velvety vocals which recall Sam
Beam (Iron & Wine) and Sufjan Stevens at their most delicate.
Usually flanked by a five-strong band, today he flies the flag alone,
but with aplomb and expanse.
Hamilton’s set is for the most part gloomy in subject-matter. “Grey
suits you too” he laments in what he labels “a love story about
pirates”, a song concerning controversial Canadian PM Stephen Harper
who, rather absurdly, purchased fighter jets to protect Northern Canada
from pirates. Corruption reputedly lies within; he utters “fuck Stephen
Harper” innumerable times. Another highlight comes courtesy of a ditty
inspired by lost London landmark Postman’s Park, where the deaths of
those who lost their lives trying to save others are described on the
‘Watts Memorial to Heroic Self-sacrifice’. The singer was principally
moved by story of 12-year-old David Selves who tried to support his
drowning friend but sank with him clasped in his arms. “It’s definitely a
downer”, he quips. Indeed it is, but at last he cheers the room up with
an amusingly adroit cover of a “Swedish folk song”, ‘Lay All Your Love
On Me’ by ABBA.
After a short while, our headliner sidles on stage. It has to be said
that a set like Bird’s should really be chaotic: an irregular,
virtuosic polymath switching frenetically between whistling, singing,
violin (bows, plucks and thrums) and guitar, incorporating all of
calypso, blues and country. But of course, this virtuoso makes it work,
proffering epochal, incandescent rock n roll. He starts sole, building
loops of intricate pizzicato plucks. ‘Danse Carribe’ is a complex
arrangement in which he moves from folky vibrato bows through tenacious
thrumming to whistling soars and stark xylophone. This then segues into a
down-tempo jazzy cut. In fact, his entire set is marked by the way in
which he assuredly, instantaneously flickers from brazenly pouring out
emotion to purveying an intrinsic, insouciant ‘cool’. When his backing
band ascends for the calypso swing of ‘Night Duty’ we’re already in
thrall.
Following the lightning-fast, labyrinthine plucks and slinking bass
grooves of the super-melodic ‘Desperation Breeds’, we get ‘Orpheo Looks
Back’, a new tune which alternates between Latin-ish offbeat thumps and
folky violin solos. Harmonically, the chorus would slot nicely into Paul
Simon’s Graceland. Next up, ‘Measuring Cups’, lifted from Bird’s early
The Mystery Production Of Eggs, is a welcome inclusion in which,
alongside anthemic single ‘Break It Yourself’, the agreeable whimsy of
his lyrics recalls Oh, Inverted World-era the Shins. The second witty
cover of the evening comes as a bona fide delight: ‘It’s Not Easy Being
Green’ by Kermit. Yes, really… Bird and band transform it into an
enchanting blues ballad with polished violin flourishes and winning
bass-lines.
Earlier this afternoon, Bird treated fans to in an intimate warm-up
at Rise record store on Queen’s Road. There he showcased his “old timey
set-up”, something he repeats in the encore tonight. He and his two
guitarists assemble around one microphone and rattle through a couple of
country and western classics and ‘Give It Away’. The latter, along with
a Townes Van Zandt cover, culminate an evening of captivating,
gratifying musical confusion.
