Tin Speaker

I’ve been facing the ire of my legions of followers lately for the dearth of posts here, and for this I am grateful, because it is good to know that there are so many out there who rely on me for their daily sustenance of wit and pith and good cheer. Today I bring you, several days late, news of my latest experience with Elvis Perkins in Dearland.

The opening act was Himalayas, about whom I knew nothing prior to the show. When I arrived at about ten of nine (the schedule was Doors (not the band! ha, ha!) 8:00, Himalayas 9:00, Elvis 10:00), there were several musicians milling about the mostly empty room, instruments at their side. Although I was confused, I really didn’t think too much of it. At a couple minutes past the hour, a brass racket began to sound from all corners of the room, and I could see that there were a lot more band members than I had seen. They eventually all headed up the stairs to the stage, each contributing to the cacophony in a seemingly individual and arbitrary way. When all 22 (by my count) were ready, the bandleader, looking like Hunter S. Thompson in a suit, sunglasses and hat, coaxed them into order. They played for a solid hour, surprisingly — longer, I think, than any opening act I’ve seen before at Bowery. I didn’t mind, though, because it was all enjoyable, and a lot different, in a good way, from a typical opening act.

Elvis and his band came onstage about a half an hour later, at 10:30, Elvis in a hunting-orange knit cap and giant white scarf. Here I must take a moment to mention the members of Dearland by name. They are: Brigham Brough, Wyndham Boylan-Garnett, and Nick Kinsey. Are you kidding me with those names? They sound like they could be the tri-captains of the Phillips Exeter varsity squash team.

One thing that Elvis has been shying away from lately is the acoustic guitar. When I saw him last summer, I was surprised to see him play what I think was a Fender Jaguar for pretty much the whole set, and avoiding the acoustic altogether. At Bowery last week, he also stuck with electric until after the show (more on that shortly), plugging in the Jaguar and a couple of hollow-bodied somethings (one was an Epiphone). I think the electric guitars is part of an attempt to shed the folksy singer-songwriter image, which I can understand, since that’s really a saturated market, and most of his first record, Ash Wednesday, falls under many of the descriptors which are associated with that scene.

The songs remained mostly down-tempo and delicate throughout the evening, with a surprise highlight for me being a cover of the previously unknown to me spiritual Weeping Mary, the “sister song” to Perkins staple Weeping Pilgrim. Dearland are no Fleet Foxes, but their harmonies were still affecting. There were plenty of upbeat numbers, though, including album standout Hey with Kinsey parading around the stage with a bass drum and tambourine. Members of Himalayas came onstage for that and several other songs to provide the brass accompaniment.

Elvis closed out the set with a reworked version of While You Were Sleeping, introducing it with a half-apology about not playing enough material from the first record. With the acoustic guitar gone, the Ash Wednesday highlight took on a tauter, wiry atmosphere, while the other instrumentation, with a new band member joining in on on each verse, kept the progression of the song intact. After a brief break the band came out for the encore and did the old start-the-encore-with-a-slow-song trick, languidly but tightly playing through How’s Forever Been, Baby, an excellent vehicle for Elvis’s keen sense of vocal phrasing. The second song of the encore, and last of the night, was stomper Doomsday, which found Kinsey again strapping on the bass drum and joining several of Himalayas’ brass men at the front of the stage.

At the end of Doomsday, the Himalayas leader and another couple of band members kept playing right at the foot of the stage, and several others, including Elvis Perkins and Dearland, were processing through the club. I grabbed a set list then quickly headed to the back of the room to follow the bands outside, where they were still playing riffs from Doomsday in front of the entrance to the ballroom. At this point, Elvis was playing an acoustic guitar, but I’m pretty sure he had been playing an electric on stage. Someone had the inevitable idea to head down the soapy stairs into the Bowery JMZ station, and as soon as everyone with an instrument was in, I followed right behind. We marched through the station, past MTA employees who seemed grateful for the distraction, and popped out the other side to continue the ruckus.

I’ll upload a photo when I get my computer back (maybe), but here is a transcription of the decidedly new-album-heavy set list below:

Stay Zombie
Shampoo
I Heard Your Voice in Dresden
Chains, Chains, Chains
Hey
I’ll Be Arriving
Stop, Drop, Rock and Roll
Weeping Mary
Ash Wednesday
Davey
Send My Fond Regards to Lonelyville
Hours Last Stand
While You Were Sleeping

How’s Forever Been Baby
Doomsday

This entry was posted on 01 Apr 2009 at 9:11 pm and is filed under music. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments.

Tags: bowery ballroom, elvis perkins, elvis perkins in dearland, himalayas