Published: April 24, 2008 04:37 pm            

Ranking the worst and best of concerts

This is how I would rank the four bands I saw live this past week.

Yeasayer put on the best show. Man Man and Okkervil River tied for second. The New Pornographers finished a far, far distant third. I think I will discuss in more depth the worst and the best.

As for, Man Man, I had seen the band of bearded gypsy rock stars before, and as before it was a wild, energetic, percussive show with the band literally banging on pots in addition to the numerous actual drums. If you can afford to book them, they would be an excellent band for a house party.

Okkervil River, the ramshackle, romantic folk-pop band from Austin, Texas, played an incredibly strong set of their best songs — including my personal favorite, the beautiful “It Ends With a Fall” from 2003’s “Down the River of Golden Dreams” — and when “John Allyn Smith Sails” transitioned into “Sloop John B” I decided every band should be forced to cover that Beach Boys’ standard live.



The New Pornographers

I like the recorded output of the New Pornographers more than the other bands, but dear lord, were they ever boring live. This was the third time I had seen the Canadian guitar-based power pop band. The first time I saw the band in Chicago just after the release of “Twin Cinema” and the Pornographers’ put on a show that approached transcendence.

Dan Bejar, of Destroyer, and Neko Case — two integral members of the band who don’t always tour with them — were with the band then. Bejar would stumble out on stage with his floppy hair and drink in hand for his songs and take over lead vocals from Carl Newman. During “Testament to Youth in Verse,” Bejar, Case and Newman, one by one, began to sing the glorious refrain “the bells ring no no no no” part with the other members of the band also falling in until there was a six or seven-part harmony.

On Monday night when the band played “Testament to Youth in Verse” there was a three-part harmony, Newman sang lead because Bejar wasn’t there, Case wasn’t present either, and the song felt smaller than it should have. The band felt smaller, too, being oddly swallowed by the stage, even though the stage wasn’t that big. The songs, which are some of the catchiest of the ‘00s, lost quite a bit in translation. While louder and more lively, they sounded flatter, squashed and without the space and nuance of the album versions, which was not the case at all when I saw the band three years ago.

Part of the problem is that Newman, while a pop genius, isn’t much of a front man and working with fewer people — and therefore less band dynamism — the Pornographers become more of a rock band than a pop band, which, I believe, requires a more dominant personality than Newman mustered. He also looked especially boring compared with the showmanship Okkervil River’s dandy of a lead singer and songwriter Will Sheff had displayed just a half hour earlier.



Yeasayer

Yeasayer opened up for Man Man at a smaller venue just a few blocks from my apartment. I arrived a couple songs into the Brooklyn band’s set, and I was at first impressed by how loud the music was. Then a guy walked past me and gestured with his head toward the stage saying, “These guys suck.” This immediately made me want to get a closer look.

Yeasayer has gotten a lot of good press recently, specifically at the South by Southwest festival this year, and on a recent “Late Night with Conan O’Brien” appearance, Conan declared the band’s single “2080” his “favorite song in a long time.” I had listened to the band’s album “All Hour Cymbals” that came out in October last year, and I liked it, despite not loving it.

Live, however, the band is gripping. It’s difficult to describe Yeasayer’s sound, but the band describes its music as “Middle Eastern-psych-snap-gospel” — whatever that means. My bid at a description would be the atmospherics of Pink Floyd and the tribal, proto-folk rock of something like Amon Duul II combined with Peter Gabriel or Echo and the Bunnymen? Much of “All Hour Cymbals” would have fit perfectly into the soundtrack for Donnie Darko, despite not being from the ‘80s. Essentially, Yeasayer makes dark, moody music that sounds disconcertingly dreamy with ominous keyboards and lithe, layered percussion. (Feel free to go to the band’s MySpace page and come up with your own description.)

The lead singer, Chris Keating, himself looked like he might have hung out with the prestige clique in an ‘80s movie. Skinny with a preppy haircut and button-down shirt, he contrasted his more hirsute and disheveled band. He was a riveting front man, gesturing in this slow, preppy way as he sang, and the music, as mentioned before, was dramatic, and all-encompassing in its loudness. It’s a great feeling to be riveted by a band whose music you hadn’t paid much attention to before, and Conan was right. “2080” is one of my favorite songs in a long time, too.



Jeremiah Tucker writes for The Joplin (Mo.) Globe.

        

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