Gig: The Decemberists @ KOKO 19/5/06

Originally uploaded by Janus Granka.

Sit back and I'll tell you a story.

Hell, stand up and I'll sing it to you.

Seeing The Decemberists' Colin Meloy perform onstage is like lying back in bed listening to your mum read you a story. Each song is a little vignette, a trip into another world, another persona. Over the course of tonight's set we jumped off the cliffs of Dover, relaxed in WWII trenches, went up a chimney and lay prostrate on a basketball court. Each time we skipped from body to body, place to place, Meloy effortlessly conjured up the scene with a twist of his hand or a hug of his guitar.

I say effortlessly because we never left the concert. For all their drama and theatricality, The Decemberists are first and foremost a band. They look and sound like a band. They play tightly and they have the charisma and style of a band (Meloy has the best indie rock stance I have seen in a long time - he must spend ages in front of the mirror). Their art is in their music. If it weren't so evocative, Meloy thrusting his hands in his back pockets would be a cheap parlour trick but with the music pulsing around him, he transforms into "Billy Liar".

All of this began with a rather esoteric choice of opening track, "California One/Truth and Beauty Brigade", a slow builder off their first LP. All I can say is that it was an inspired choice. It gave away slowly what we were about to see and drew the audience into the magic of the imagination. When Meloy lay down in the lengthy bridge between the two songs (where the slash is I suppose) green grass seemed to roll out from under him and the sun kissed his face. Then he simply stood up and rocked on.

I took all of this in from the heights of KOKO's seventh level. It was the only railing that had any free space left but it turned out to be an optimum space. Secluded enough to feel intimate with the band with no distractions in front and no whale echo. After drifting through an up-beated "We Both Go Down Together" (I know, up-beat suicide songs, go figure), a crowd pleasing "This Sporting Life" and a soaring rendition of "The Soldiering Life", I was convinced to check out some other vantage points (and KOKO as I said before, has many).

Eventually I ended up in the pit again for "Billy Liar" and "Los Angeles, I'm Yours". Perhaps because there were too many conversations going on, or perhaps because they are not the band's best compositions I wasn't much taken with the songs or the position so I wandered back up to my little heaven in the heavens.

I am glad I did because the finale was a cracker. First they finished up with a crackling version of "Sixteen Military Wives", I song I have never really taken to until tonight. Meloy rocked out with his electrified acoustic guitar, knocked over microphones and leaped about. Just when they had the whole crowd jumping they disappeared.

One obligatory encore later they tip-toed their way into "The Chimbley Sweep". AMAZING. Words can't describe how well this song works live. Meloy walked into the crowd, held aloft by the hands of his fans, all the while strumming away then Meloy hushed the band. He hushed the band, then he hushed the crowd. He hushed the crowd, then one by one he knocked the band members into sleep.

With the band crumpled on stage like rag dolls, Meloy turned his attention to the pit. Gently he urged them to slink down on the no-doubt manky floor. Then the dress circle. Then the upper circle.

With the whole venue reclining on the floor the band picked up their instruments and continued with the song. Jenny Conlee tunefully rasped the gentler moments then, as Colin picked up the chorus, in a communal effort seen only when elephants walk the streets, the whole of the crowd leapt up and jigged out the rest of the closing number.

A grand ending to a grand evening.


Tags: music, review, London