Andrew Bird: Equal Parts Lou Reed and Jesus (Notes on the Birdman's Paramount Show)

photo by Keith Klenowski

I spotted an attendant standing further back up the balcony, quickly hopped up a few flights of red carpet, and excitedly presented my ticket. He looked at it for a moment with his flashlight and chuckled, "You better have brought your oxygen tank, son."

Indeed, my friends and I, five of us in all, had the good fortune of purchasing the last of the Andrew Bird tickets at Waterloo months before. Our seats were an indication of that, but the nosebleeders came with a benefit: from seat two, row "W", section "L", upper balcony I could sit as far up on the edge of my seat as I wanted without obstructing the view of any one behind me. This is fortunate because that is exactly what I would be doing all night.

The first act, Lonely Dear, were unpretentious enough. Singer Emil Svanangen charmed the audience with a reserved, but not entirely shy, sense of humor. He punctuated his tunes with folkish melodies that, even from as far back as I was, gave a sense of intimacy to the set. At one point he cued the audience to sing a melody to a song which sounded absolutely beautiful in the spacious hall of the Paramount. It was literally the only time in my life I can honestly say I approved of crowd participation during a show.

Then intermission. With the lights on I could see that the few empty seats had been or were being filled by Austin's middle aged and music savvy. The lights dimmed, paused, then dropped to darkness and excited cheers from below. When they came back on there he was: Andrew Bird.

Pause.

Before I go on I really need to describe to you the scene below:

First, you can't ignore the gilded statues behind the man. Four. Gigantic. Gramophones. Each with it's own size and purpose. At the touch of a button (or a foot-pedal) he can route his sound through them and into the already rich acoustic atmosphere of the Paramount. That's pretty cool, I guess.

The rest of his set up is slightly less eye-catching. A mic back and to the left for backup vocals/percussion/whistling/beatboxing, a xylophone, a pedal station for effects and looping, and a primary microphone for lead vocals and, of course, violin.

As the applause dies down he plucks his violin. A moment later he takes out his bow (the sound now looping through the pa system) and launches into several more overdubs of a classical composition. Right as the song reaches a climax it becomes suddenly quiet, allowing him to punctuate the silence with one melodious ellipse from somewhere inside his violin. "I had to indulge myself," he apologizes to the awestruck audience. After playing at Carnegy Hall a few weeks before he describes The Paramount as sounding "almost as good."

The rest of the night follows in much the same way, with occasional dialogue about his lucky monkey doll, his horse socks, and a conversation with one of the more vocal audience members about what song he should play next (which lead to a few slip ups-- minor details that he glosses over with a combination of musicianship and the innate talent of a stage-man). After two standing ovations it becomes clear that Andrew Bird takes the idea of the "one man band", usually more spectacle than anything else, and elegantly lets it blur the lines between him and his music.