Colin Meloy Sings

Category: Music

No I'm not blogging about my godamn poopy life right now.
cause I saw the lead singer of the decemberists play a solo show last night. I was not too excited... He's kind of a big Ham, and while this makes me laugh... it was hard to see how he was going to blow me away. He came out on stage and introduced his friends, a stuffed sheep, a skull, a boat, and a bottle of wine that were sitting on a table and all aparently have been personified with names (Someone in the balcony actually named the bottle of wine Gerard.) The set was pretty good and got increasingly interesting. Colin played a few songs from his cover EP of Shirly Collins songs with John Wesley Harding and some songs you wouldn't hear the decemberists normally do, which was fairly interesting. The crowd really responded to him, humming and wistling sections of the familiar tunes filling in for some of the loss in instrumentation. The piece that blew me away was the fact that Colin had the audacity to play California One... a 10 minute anthemic rock song with multiple sections, and normally played as an almost Orchestral rock piece. When he started playing it I had to lean forward in my seat thinking this is some kinda joke. He played the whole song, and to hear one of my favorite songs stripped down to its naked backbone was quite an experience. The addition of a mini-cover of the Smiths "Ask" had me in tears, but I'm a sensitive guy these days as you may know. I would strongly recomend seeing Colin Meloy solo if you have any interest in the Decemberists, it's an entirely new way to hear some quality music.
bill