I Heart Effete Intellectual Indie Rockers

I've recently come to grips with the fact that my favorite band is The Decemberists. I'm not sure what my favorite band was before them -- it's been a while since anyone held the title. At one point or another, the answer could have been The Outkast, A Tribe Called Quest, Phish, The Grateful Dead, Soulive, The Rolling Stones, The Beastie Boys, Sublime, Led Zeppelin, Nirvana or a handful of others. Those are bands whose catalogue I dove into and inhaled, the CDs I played on repeat, the bands I couldn't wait to see live or would still give a finger to see... Well, I guess Zep and Sublime are the only ones I missed. Jon Bonham and Brad Nowell, like goddam flaming meteors. And Kurt. And Jerry, though he didn't exactly streak across they sky. Anyway, The Decemberists. An old ex-semi-girlfriend clued me in to them, this rad chick from Hong Kong. They're the perfect band for me. Their stories and their language seems ripped from the Northon Anthologies -- it all reeks of Coleridge and Shakespeare and Blake. Their antique language is backed-up by a folk-rock sound and a dizzying array of instrumentation. The Decemberists’ studio albums are so richly-layered and pure – it’s albums like “The Crane Wife” where a quality stereo can make all the difference. There was some backlash from the indie rock snobs when they went major label, but the production quality is so high, and their sound evolved so sensibly and so organically from their last album, that I think the criticism has almost no merit.

I’ve seen them thrice, and though the second two times were back-to-back shows with nearly identical setlists, the experience was so rapturous that this complaint was only whispered. Their lives shows are just wonderful, from Colin Meloy (lead vocals) taking pictures with an audience member’s camera, to calling another audience member’s mother on their cell phone.

Yes, there’s an element of vaudeville, perhaps even carny, that Meloy’s theatrics lends to the proceedings, but when he sings “I was meant for the Stage,” he’s right.Rating: 5/5 High School Theater Kids