Indie-rock patron saint Andrew Bird, along with inimitable opener John Grant, stopped for a sublime show at Portland’s Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall on Wednesday, May 18.
Grant, a musician from Iceland-by-way-of-Colorado-by-way-of-Michigan, is opening for Bird since his recent album Grey Tickles, Black Pressure came out in late 2015. He took the stage with two bandmates, insisted self-deprecatingly that they wouldn’t take long and would “get the fuck out of your hair” as soon as possible. The group began with “Sigourney Weaver” with Grant’s mighty piano and a wormy little synth.
Later Grant noted, “This next one was not written in Portland, but it’s called ‘Where Dreams Go To Die.’” His bandmate’s guitar scanned across the audience like a lighthouse scans an empty sea while Grant lamented in his sweetly sorrowful, honeyed baritone, “Baby, I regret the day your lovely carcass caught my eye.”
“Grey Tickles, Black Pressure,” inspired by the Icelandic translation for “mid-life crisis” and the Turkish translation for “nightmares.” Even though he’s a miserable man at a piano — whose devastating lyrics included an uncle’s arm amputation from a corn thresher, children with cancer and an ignorance of the turmoil in the Middle East — he drew a lot of laughs.
Grant is one of the best lyricists and songwriters (just read the liner notes for 2010’s Queen of Denmark). He renders some pain into little jokes that he tucks behind minor chords.
And “GMF,” a perfectly vulgar anthem for anyone consumed with reckless hubris and unearned self-confidence, likewise pulled laughs and went over like a comedy set.
Grant, in his black tee, jeans and black beanie, still smiled with a bashful, dimpled pride, even after he closed with “Queen of Denmark,” in which he coyly brings up, “You tell me that my life is based upon a lie / I casually mention that I pissed in your coffee.”
Before Bird took the helm, Grant’s keyboards and synths were traded for electric guitars, marimba, banjo and Bird’s violin, and the self-pity was swapped for demure adulthood.
Dressed in a bleach-white shirt and a charcoal-gray suit, Bird was installed centered and tall, statuesque and handsome, silhouetted before a bleeding red light. The band opened with “Capsized,” a cut from Bird’s newest Are You Serious. He’s now upgraded to a magnificent light show; every clash of the cymbals sparked a firework flash of light behind them.
Previous shows featured Bird with a gyrating, double-horned gramophone and a debonair, sharply dressed sock money resting against it. This ain’t no shoestring budget Andrew Bird (if the leather pants weren’t enough of an indicator).
Bird’s live act is a pulley system of luxuriated violin strokes, capricious ukulele plucking of the violin, as well as a banjo, grinding guitar, marimba plunks, not to mention the paternal comfort of his whistle and his damn pristine voice.
Sleater-Kinney’s Corin Tucker joined Bird for a dynamite duet of “Left Handed Kisses.”
He attempted four separate times to nail the intricate coil of violin plucking that kicks off “Plasticities” from 2007’s Armchair Apocrypha before ultimately nailing it. The gentle introduction was looped, carried under his violin playing. This snowballed into a massive arrangement that peaked with Bird’s twittering whistle was chopped and distorted while celestial lights blinked behind him.
The triumphant, career-spanning set also radiated with tracks including “A Nervous Tic Motion of the Head to the Left,” “Pulaski at Night,” “Valleys of the Young,” for which Bird asks one of his inordinate questions from the night, like “Is it selfish or is it brave?”
The encore focused on Bird and two bandmates stationed around a microphone with their lovely, simple renditions of “Railroad Bill” (which you could imagine is brilliant live), “Chemical Switches,” and “The New St. Jude.”
Truly, this was a set so spotless that the only hint of unkemptness was in Bird’s bow, which slowly frayed and snapped hairs as he sawed through the strings. Still, he makes it look easy.
Listen to “Valleys of the Young” from Andrew Bird’s Are You Serious below.