In what could only be described as an awe-inspiring performance, multi-instrumentalist Andrew Bird not only entertained last night at the State Theatre in Ithaca, but he blew minds with his dance between instruments, loops and sequencers and built new songs from the pieces from which they began.  Simply incredible to watch and deep beyond wildest thoughts, his performance took his songs to new levels of complexity and openness, simplicity and balance, and mesmerized the crowd of over 1200 in attendance.

Each song began with pieces of violin or guitar that were recorded and looped as he continued to layer and add segments sometimes taking a song as recorded and re-inventing it in a new and grander form.  The ease with which one man creates such a wall of sound was truly exciting to watch and the incredible attention paid by the audience was amazing.  Dead silence that ripped into thunderous applause after every song. And did I mention his unequaled whistling prowess?  That filled the room more than most acts Marshall stacks or Fender Twins on a normal night.  And when he stripped down to just voice and guitar you could hear a pin drop in that venue. Easily, this was the highlight of 2008 so far…

Bird covered a wide range of his titles and even reached way back for a song he said he hadn’t played in ten years… “I’m covering myself” he told the crowd and despite a moment where he missed a chord and laughed it off, both headsoak and even the new song natural disaster were even better than their initial forms.  Fitz and Dizzy Spells also comes off the just finished new album.  In addition to these new songs, he borrowed heavily from earlier albums, The Mysterious Production of Eggs, The Swimming Hour and even Weather Systems, whose eponymous title was the thunderous encore.  Newer fans were rewarded with several songs from Armchair Apocrypha including perhaps his biggest “hit” imitisos.

It was truly an honor to welcome Andrew back into my world.  Nights like last night make me proud to be in this business.  I first presented Andrew with Bowl of Fire as the opening act for Squirrel Nut Zippers  at the Roxy Ballroom in Boston on April 4th, 1997 (Andrew is an unofficial member and played on all their early albums – they are here 12/6 by the way).  That day he signed with Rykodisc, who put out all the BOF’s albums.  Seeing his evolution from classically trained violin master and gypsy jazz and swing band to his current status as indie-rock superhero is utterly rewarding.  Its rare that musicians with such talent and integrity weather this many storms and succeed.  Andrew’s amazing live show has a lot to do with it, but I hope its that people are again taking serious musicians seriously.  He, of all current talents, might just deserve it most- for he knows where his music came from and uses that to take it to places never seen before.  To me, there’s nothing better than that!

LULL – Live at the State Theatre 10/4/8

 

Setlist:

Intro

Sovay

Why

Nervous Tic Motion

Plasticities

Natural Disaster

Headsoak

Imitosis

Fitz and Dizzy Spells

The Water Jet Cilice

Lull

Trimmed

Tables

Weather Systems