It's rare for an artist to successfully integrate theory with content, but the "flush of embarrassment" Andrew Bird claims to thrive on made for a high-flying performance at the Union Theater Thursday night.
Without much ceremony, Martin Dosh, Armchair Apocrypha collaborator and drum-and-loop backup for Andrew Bird, laid down a syncopated keyboard melody. His soft, organic loops created a moving landscape of interlocking and combating time signatures, juxtaposed with the saxophonist Mike Lewis.
Lewis added a performance-art element, so entranced by the primordial beauty of his sound that he would seizure-step back with his dancing shadows against the veiled props, as if confronted with a ghost.
The inspired moments of Dosh's set made up for the latter half's meandering. At one point the chaos of off-kilter beats, twelve-note melodies and wailing sax dropped down into a layer of frenzied alarm clocks, and then to only an insistent metronome and warm, antielectronica melody. While the next few cuts leaned toward a generic downtempo vibe, Dosh ended his set without overstaying his welcome, building anticipation for the conductor and first violinist who could make music out of the sometimes-brilliant but piecemeal compositions of Dosh.
At first, it seemed Bird was ill-matched, even reunited with his Apocrypha foundlings, Dosh and backup guitarist Jeremy Ylviska. The Dosh-Bird collaborative intro was uneven in attitude and seemed to struggle for a harsher, less focused tone than would fit the mostly subdued theater (besides the obligatory incoherent come-ons from the drunken student set). The trio barely held together rhythmically, even as they segued into the familiar territory of Apocrypha-opener "Fiery Crash." Throughout most of Bird's set Ylviska seemed lost on bass, missing blatant cues from Bird, and never quite matching the intensity and masterful improvisation of Bird and Dosh.
But the evening made an almost complete transformation in tone with the next song, presumably one of the "half-finished" experiments he promised to showcase on the tour.
There was nothing "half" about Bird's solo here. Bird's mixture of high drama and shy side-stepping was nowhere more alive than in this mix of spoken-word narrative (staving off the questions of an alter ego with joking asides to the audience about a stubborn sound loop); operatic whistling and falsetto; and the main feat: His violin, which bent to his ferocious will to alternate with perfect grace between virtuoso classical technique, and screaming and seductive fiddle. Bird's many selves — the hermit, the ironic hipster, the rock star — became one force of nature, sweeping the audience off their feet.
The rest of the concert could not possibly live up to this moment, but Bird produced a heady, satisfying set. It was a brave move to deemphasize the careful polish and subtle, poetic lyrics ("Palindromes": Despite what all the studies have shown/ What was mistaken for closeness/ Was just a case of mitosis) that are Bird's albums' strong suits. Instead, a harder edge or funk line layers Bird's violin improvisation and wall-shaking dynamic contrast. The "rock and roll dance party" promised several times never quite materialized, due to the half-hearted participation of the audience, but Bird's up-tempo revisions of Mysterious Productions of Eggs and Apocrypha tracks were mostly successful. The stand-out of the bunch were "Opposite Days," "Nervous Tic," "Palindromes" and "Simple Exercises," each of which was accompanied by a bizarrely compelling avant garde stop-motion video, depicting everything from cellular mitosis to a Rube Goldberg egg-cracking contraption. Each also creatively built up the song's opening hooks and beats, deconstructing and reaffirming the perfect machine that listeners are accustomed to.
In the end, a standing ovation could not capture Andrew Bird, who after shedding the yolk of three years of solitude, will never feel the earth the same again.
