Andrew Bird Pulls Some Strings

Holy cow can Andrew Bird whistle. I took in his early show last night at the Media Club and while it was just about a 180 turn from the Rancid show I went to the night before, it was very enjoyable in a completely different way.

Like I said before, the guy is really difficult to describe. But he puts on an excellent show for a few reasons. He whistles in a way that I didn't think possible, he can sing and has a lovely voice, he's very much into his music, which should be a given, but often is not in live shows and he wore pink and purple striped socks.

Martin Dosh opened the show and I caught the tail end of his set. He uses the same sampling and looping techniques as Andrew, but without vocals. It takes awhile for all the pieces to get in line and come together but when they do, it's pretty impressive. He played with Andrew for about half his set as well.

Mr. Bird uses the guitar and violin the most, but also whipped out some glockenspiel playage as well. And then the whistling. He played a few gems from his latest album The Mysterious Production of Eggs, some older stuff from his Bowl of Fire days, and some new stuff that will be on his album to be released in March.

All in all, on top of being pleasing to the ears, he's really neat to watch perform, as he lays out the parts of his songs, switching instruments and adding new layers, and it all flows together and comes together in new ways and there you have a multi-textured song smacking you in the face. Just like that.

The only problem, I thought, was the venue. I'm really not a big fan of the Media Club. It's a small space, with a 150 person capacity only. And the stage is about a foot high. I've been to smaller shows here where it's not too bad, but as soon as you start to get more than 50 people in the room, if you're not a giant or at the front of the room, you have a hard time seeing anything. I'm no giant. And to digress even further: if you're over 6 feet tall, what in sweet baby Jesus' name makes you think you should stand directly in front of lowly 5'5 me? Your head is higher than everyone else's. End of digression.

Andrew Bird puts on a sweet show and tells good stories, within songs and without.