Quarterlifeparty

June 15th, 2008.

As LeVar Burton said on Reading Rainbow “Of course, you don’t have to take my word for it.” Instead you can head over to NPR where you can hear the entire show yourself. But if you’re interested in our take, here yah go:

We reluctantly made the painful Sunday night drive to DC last night to catch Shearwater at the Black Cat and by the end of the night it was absolutely worth it. Cryptacize opened the show. I was expecting a hard rock/rap band because of the name and out walked 3 band members, one being a cute female singer who also played guitar, a second guitarist (both playing out of the smallest amps I have ever seen on stage) and a drummer playing what looked to be a miniature clown drum set. They were the definition of minimal. And, I usually don’t enjoy bands that don’t have a bass player, but they were just too dreamy to dislike. The lyrics were interesting, the change-ups like prog-lite, and they were creative with what little instrumentation they had, especially the drummer who constantly found new ways to make a beat interesting using triangles and scrub boards. It was a good opening act for Shearwater, albeit a totally opposite set-up.

So on to Shearwater. Singer Jonathan Meiburg began the show with a hauntingly powerful acapella intro that made the entire audience stand very still with mouth agape. The operatic quality of his voice and how he switches from beautifully sad to frighteningly intense in a single note is something to behold. The look he gets in his eyes is scary (in a good way) and I would hate for that guy to be mad at me. Although this was contradicted by a very friendly persona when talking to the audience in between songs.

We were a little skeptical going in that they would have all of the instrumentation that they have on the albums, but it was all there crowding the small backstage area. There was a homemade Dulcimer, trumpet, two keyboards, 2 xylophones, a few pots & pans, two bass guitars (including a stand-up), 2 guitars (electric & acoustic), a banjo, a full drum set…. (taking a breath)…and a clarinet. So yeah, they brought it all.

It looked to us from watching these guys, that they are all incredibly talented, some of them probably classically trained. Thor (the drummer, clarinet, xylophone and pots/pan player), a cross between the beast from the 1987 “Beauty & the Beast” TV show and Fabio, was one of the coolest members of a band I have seen in a while. Sporting a multicolored armless shirt he jumped from instrument to instrument and even brought out a hand made dulcimer that appeared to just be a few strings fastened to a shotty block of shaved tree bark.. pretty bad ass.

They played most of, if not the entire Rook album and a few songs from Palo Santo in the middle. Meiburg explained, for the Palo Santo songs, that the album was written about the singer Nico who died of a stroke while riding a bicycle in Ibiza. The album begins with her death as he began playing the song. It was beautiful.

I don’t know if it was because of the NPR recording or not, but the sound was impeccable. Probably one of the best sounding shows I have been too. Which helped add to the atmosphere, usually provided by the non-conventional noises generated by ambient mastermind Thor, from stroking xylophone keys with a bow for high pitched squeeles to scraping a cymbal to simulate a rusty door. Overall an amazing lush sound for such a small space.

Overall, this is a must see band and might be one of the best shows we see all year. With Meiburg migrating his scientific knowledge of birds into beautiful relational melodies and a backing band that was incredibly meticulous, Shearwater, after 5 albums, are beginning to really shine through.

Quick side note: there were probably a little more than 50 people there, which was surprising but also made for an awesomely intimate show.

Shearwater “The Snow Leopard”
Shearwater “La Dame Et La Licorne”

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