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..so Tuesday's night excursion to Somerville to see Colin Meloy was a smashing success. Colin has got to be one of my favorite performers, as evidenced by my ever-accumulating stack of ticket stubs bearing his name/his band's name.
His sense of humor and delivery is just so dry and understated that he could say anything and it would be funny.
The Somerville Theatre shares music/performance space with a movie theater. To start off the show, Colin informed us that this was not the 8:30 showing of Juno and if we were hoping to see that film we ought to leave now. To console us, however, he sang Wonder, a song about being "Knocked Up." (Or rather, a song about the mysteriousness of conception, of getting "three from two." Very beautiful.)
In true Colin style, he relied on the audience to participate in re-creating classic Decemberist songs. Obviously, he just had an acoustic guitar and needed some help. So the audience "sang" lead guitar on "Perfect Crime" (The Crane Wife).
The audience's level of talent fluctuated wildly. While mustering the melodic ability to hack out the lead guitar on Perfect Crime, the audience failed miserably to clap/snap their fingers in any sort of rhythmic time to another song, whose name I don't remember as I was laughing too hard at the time to pay attention. But at one point, Colin stopped, got us back on time and then....once we had established a steady beat...started off "I've got the horse right here, his name is Paul Revere, and here's a guy says the weather's clear, can do, can do, this guy says the horse can do...." and then returned to said song that I can't remember.
Brilliant.
Other features of the night included a Sam Cooke cover. It is tradition for Colin to cover an artist and he choose Cooke for this solo tour because, according to Colin, Sam Cooke was less Anglo than Colin's previous choices.
And of course, old favorites from the archives: California One/Youth and Beauty Brigade and The Apology Song (a song Colin wrote to apologize for letting a bike committed to his care get stolen. The bike's name was Madeline.)
We were also treated to a new song in the works. Part One is about a boy (named Avery?) who is being sent off to the dangerous mines by a tearful mother. Part Two is about the funeral procession for a boy (named Davey?).
We are left wondering if Part Two is a logical progression from Part One, but the song was nice.
The concert closed with a Cautionary Tale, which might be a nice Mother's Day song if it wasn't so tragic. But a good reminder to be thankful for "all your mother does."
And of course, one can't forget the encore. After Of Angels and Angles, Colin managed to pull off the entire Mariner's Revenge Song. Lacking his female vocalists, the chorus was re-enacted by a very enthusiastic falsetto audience.
