Andrew Bird – Granada – 3/22/09
Posted April 8th, 2009 · Artists: Andrew Bird
On the tail end of our epic time at SXSW there was looming a beast of a show that Sunday night here at the Granada as Andrew Bird was finally coming to town (no doubt a SXSW-related tour date). The show had sold out over a week beforehand, though I had snagged my ticket immediately upon announcement of the show. I was a huge, huge fan of his latest album “Noble Beast” but had never had the pleasure of seeing him live. Though I was totally wiped out from SXSW it did not matter and this show just kicked all kinds of ass all over the place.
We got back from Austin fairly early in the day so I was able to kind of recoup a little bit before the show but was still feeling the effects. When I arrived Haley Bonar was already on stage playing. She was actually not too bad and really had some pretty well put together songs. She did about half with the band and half by herself, but she was thoroughly enjoyable. As she was playing however I noticed all of the gramophone stage props and general setup behind her and it just got me pumped for the main event.
He came out solo, just his violin, singing some different parts of different songs I believe kind of melding it all together into this beautiful piece. Once he had finished his intro piece the band came up and he started diving into material from ‘Noble Beast’ and elsewhere. He was just incredible. A lot of the times he would use the phrasing/sampler pedal on his violin to create a virtual orchestra behind him to kick the song off with, even sometimes switching guitar to violin and back in the same song.
The other thing you don’t realize is how well he can sing, but when he is there just belting it out with only violin accompanying him you can really tell the talent there. Pretty much every song he hit was amazing, and on a great deal of them he had a different arrangement than the album version you were used to which were often times equal to or better than the original, and had the effect of making the show really fresh sounding. I can’t remember a show in recent memory where there was more brilliant and impressive departure from the expected sound/speed/etc of the songs. Whereas most people today play to sound like the record he takes it in a whole new direction.
And then along those lines, because he is changing things up on you and moving things around he literally has the crowd in the palm of his hand the whole time and really uses silence and breaks in the songs to draw everyone further in. He sings and plays with great emotion and feeling that he really gets across to everyone and makes for an incredible night.
After the show I pretty much dubbed this the best show I’ve ever seen at the Granada and I still stand by that. I have seen a lot of shows there, a lot of which were really good, but none as unique and powerful as this. Everything about the show on display was top-notch and I was truly blown the fuck away on this one. Although I really really really regret never seeing him play while I lived in Chicago, at least I finally got to see him here and I would love to see him again. Needless to say if you have a chance to see him play, do it, do it now.
