Concert Review: David Byrne & St. Vincent

Brass, black and white . . . oh, and a theramin fight.

I kept my expectations low going into the David Byrne & St. Vincent concert on Sept. 30th at the Strathmore in Rockville. I like St. Vincent (aka Annie Clark) a lot and I LOVE David Byrne - they're some of the most charming and challenging popular musicians touring today. But I wondered if their shared love of the cerebral and the abstract would result in an alienating experience. Would their different wavelengths of near-twee be harmonic or dissonant? Would their attraction to the grotesque be sublimated to their capacity for musical joy, or would it be a force multiplier?

Listening to "Love This Giant," the collaboration that spawned this tour, only partially answered these questions. The album is not my favorite Byrne collaboration: that status goes to his most recent work with Brian Eno, "Everything That Happens Will Happen Today." And his recent collaboration with Fatboy Slim, "Here Lies Love," a strangely upbeat concept album about Imelda Marcos (of all things), is arguably more lyrically consistent. But "Giant" is consistent in artistic vision, sonically interesting, and rhythmically enjoyable. Unifying the noise-texture of St. Vincent and the rhythmic abstraction of Byrne, a well-used horn section keeps most tracks accessible and provides some musical narrative.


The same accessibility and narrative grounding came out in their live show. Walking into the auditorium, I was excited to find the unoccupied stage mottled with small spotlights, each illuminating a shiny brass instrument. Byrne and Clark took the stage with a 10-piece band, including trumpets, trombones, saxes, a french horn and a sousaphone. Dressed in black, the band lent visual as well as sonic impact: marching choreography kept them moving about the stage, sometimes snaking along in a slow parade, sometimes circling each other, sometimes pulling Byrne or Clark into their midst. At one point, everyone on stage lay down and played an entire song supine - no small feat for the sousaphone player.

Byrne and Clark themselves were fun and on their game, though they kept the banter to a minimum. Byrne kept his wardrobe simple with black pants and shirt, white suspenders and saddle shoes - all the better to amble about the stage and practice his abstract hand gestures. At age 60, his formerly self-conscious jerky dance moves are starting to soften into endearingly authentic old-man dancing. Clark wore a short iridescent dress, hair radiating out in every direction, bare legs ending in some formidable cage heels. Her primary dance was an exaggerated baby-doll tottering on said heels, which looked less creepy than it may sound. She jumped in on some of the hand gestures too.


The musical differences between Byrne & Clark are still fairly stark. As on the album, it was easy to distinguish the songs that Clark had spearheaded from the songs that were primarily Byrne's babies. She tends toward the ambient, and her songs meander more sonically and lyrically. He looks more to the bottom line: first person narrative, bass, and drums. In the Strathmore, their distinctions were made even more obvious by the differences in volume. Clark's songs swallowed the space, making me wish for earplugs despite sitting literally against the auditorium's back wall. Then, too, they both played a number of songs from individual projects - strains of "I don't wanna be a cheerleader no more" blasted at max volume still echo in my head, as do fond memories of dancing to "Burning Down the House."

Happily, Byrne & Clarke's individual visions gelled well enough in concert to provide a thoroughly cohesive experience. Cerebral and abstract, yes, but joyous and rhythmic too. And deliciously dorky! There was an actual theramin fight, and one song was dedicated to the Higgs Boson particle. You only have to have a very cursory knowlege of both artists' careers to know that such details are far from gimmicks. And you have to have even less to find the whole experience pretty darn enjoyable.

Rocktober

There's a distinct chill in the air this week. Hello fall! I look forward to your golden afternoon light and to wearing my puffy vest. I have eaten paw paw fruits and have stocked up on woolly tights. COME AT ME.

None of the pictures in this entry are germane to this entry.

October is also a good reminder that I haven't posted about my monthly "projects" (an increasingly loose term) since...July? Yeesh. I've been pretty busy of late between house maintenance, vacation, and social and cultural engagements of various types. Also, in my free time, super lazy.

To recap the monthly project situation:

July: No social networking month. This was actually pretty nice and my brain space expanded noticeably if not enormously. I abstained from Facebook, Pinterest and Twitter (the latter of which I rarely use anyway). I also cut way back on Google Reader, which is not social media itself in the same way as the others but does occupy some of the same brainspace.

Unfortunately, I was unable to hold onto the brain-benefits after the month was over and instead dove straight back into the blue, glowing arms of internet dependence. I'm not proud. On the other hand, I do learn a bit about the world from my digital wanderings so it's not a total loss. At the end of the month I took a few small measures to try to better curate what consumes my computer-energy. I hid the feeds of FB "friends" with whom I haven't had any contact in a few years, hid unread counts from my Google Reader so I can't get completionist-competitive with myself, and conveniently forgot about Twitter again. These tweaks have helped a little bit but it's still an uphill battle. Obviously the best way for me to manage internet dependence is to limit computer exposure overall and that is mostly related to how busy I am at work and at home.


August: I kinda forgot to have an intention or project in August - or I picked one and immediately abandoned it. I can't even remember. In practice, I could argue that August's project was biking, as it was in that most sweltering of months that I started cycling to work from our new house. I have a post nearly ready to go about what I learned as a dilettante urban biker. Happily, this is one practice that I've kept up, more or less, though I expect it to taper off in the next month or two as the morning weather slides from chilly to cold.

September: September was about as big a failure as February, project-wise. My intention was to journal privately each day of the month, because I clearly need more structure in my life, could use a bit more honest (i.e. non-audience-driven) self-reflection, and have a terrible memory. Plus, I went on an awesome trip with E and some friends and wanted to record it for posterity. Unfortunately, the whole venture lasted a remarkable 4 days before I missed a night of journaling while intoxicated in a hotel in Nashville, and abandoned the daily plan completely. I have yet to find a way to make the daily journal thing work in practice. I've tried writing on my computer, on my phone, and on paper; I've tried writing at night and writing when it's convenient. I always end up missing a day and/or falling asleep mid-entry. Still working on that one. I want to think that writing more regularly would mean writing less in each session, like with other maintenance-based vs. accomplishment-based activities. But on the other hand NEWSFLASH: I really like to write about myself. Thanks to a tip from a friend I might have a new idea up my sleeve but I'm still playing around with it so stay tuned.

And that fiiiiinally brings us to . . .

October: This months cop-out "project" will be: music. October is shaping up to be another busy one, with a main component being a pretty intense (for me) concert line-up. Technically this rash of autumn concerts started unexpectedly last week but it extends through the next few weekends and will surely keep me sleep-deprived and hearing-impaired for a few weeks after that.

9/24 Madonna at Verizon Center
9/30 David Byrne & St. Vincent at Strathmore Music Hall
10/6 Virgin FreeFest*
10/7 Frightened Rabbit at Black Cat
10/12 Jens Lekman at 9:30 Club
10/13 Dar Williams at Birchmere
TBD Others??? (Suggestions welcome!**)

And that's not accounting for the music-filled Tennessee adventure from September, which I have yet to post about. Overall, October's music-theme plan is to . . .

- Post a concert review of each show I attend
- Post my September and October playlists, and, if the spirit moves me, playlists from over the summer
- Sing in a chorus at some point during October (All Souls, I'm looking in your direction)
- Steal my dad's guitar again and make some new callouses on my fingers
- Post about the Tennessee trip, particularly the music elements, before the end of the month

See you on the other side for what's sure to be a rousing month of ear protection and napping in November!



*Owing to poor time management, traffic, and apathy, we didn't actually make it to FreeFest. Instead I'll collect some reviews of the bands that we kinda wanted to see but missed while either sitting in traffic in Columbia or while visiting the craft store/Trader Joes after we gave up.

**Especially recommendations for Vegas! Sadly Cher's not there anymore otherwise I would see that show in a heartbeat. We're on the strip the weekend of Oct. 19-22.