OKKERVIL RIVER
I had only heard a little of Okkervil River before this show. I had heard Sleep and Wake-Up Songs, Our Life is Not a Movie from The Stage Names and their Daytrotter session, and it was the latter that most appealed to me. This dampened my excitement for the gig though as I knew that the majority of the set would be a full band affair rather than the simple, emotive acoustic songs from that session. Opening with The President's Dead with frontman Will Sheff alone onstage with just his voice and acoustic guitar. Despite inevitably bursting into full band before the end of the song, I was still suddenly very optimistic again.
This soon died down again though and, although they were still entertaining I found that my mind was often found elsewhere. This ended the second that Sheff began playing A Stone. Surely one of the most beautiful songs ever written, they held back having the band intrude upon it until later than in the recorded version, exploding and fading at the perfect junctures to allow the solemn denouement the strongest possible resonance. A truly stunning moment that left my eyes wide and my mouth ajar.
From here it was plain sailing. I couldn't be more alert to the intricacies of the band and their abilities to make their perfect mix of indie and americana. The double blow of Our Life is Not a Movie and Unless it's Kicks to end the set was perfect and then opening the encore with Red was, yet again, supreme. Ending with Westfall and encouraging the crowd to sing the line 'evil don’t look like anything' along with the band, there are very few shows that singing along to a song about murder can still have you leaving with a smile, but this is one. A gig of two halves you might say, but I feel that the first half was more me not being in the mindset than the band not being at their best.
http://www.myspace.com/okkervilriver
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