[ATTENDED: July 22, 2025] The Decemberists
We saw The Decemberists last year and it was pretty exciting that they announced a small summer tour (8 shows!) and one was in Bethlehem. My last experience here at Wind Creek was abysmal. We arrived much earlier tonight and the getting into the venue process wasn’t that terrible.
The previous show was fairly elaborate with a large cast on stage. They opened with just Colin singing and then the rest of the band slowly coming out to make each song louder.
This time was completely different. Drummer John Moen came out first and started a rousing drum beat. Then the rest of the band came out and they launched into July, July! a perfectly apt song for the summer, and one that we hadn’t seen before (which is shocking). Indeed, while not a rarities show per se, this show featured a lot of songs that we hadn’t seen before or, had only seen once.
I wondered if they’d play much from the new album–technically this is still the same tour (Peaceable Kingdom–their merch totes still said 2024). They played three songs, Burial Ground which is always fun to hear live. The other two songs were deep cuts from the new album and two that they hadn’t played live before this mini tour.
Rox in the Box is one of my wife’s favorite songs and she’s always a little bummed when they don’t play it. But this time they did. Before the show we talked to the people seated next to us (gasp, really? Yes!) and in discussing what songs they’d like to hear, my wife said Rox in the Box (check) and Make You Better (check). We also discussed the new jamming version of Severed. This version had Colin telling an off-the-cuff (clearly) story about the brown shirts in charge of this country being subsumed by the rust of steelstacks (or something).
After a second deep cut from As It Ever Was (which I thought sounded familiar but couldn’t place it), they played a superbly deep cut from an early album: The Bus Mall (something they do play from time to time, but which I’d never heard live). It was followed by another new track for us, Oceanside, a fun song from their earliest EP.
They brought out Ron from Melt to sing The Queen’s Rebuke and she sounded fantastic! I don’t know where she came from–Melt didn’t open the show and they are playing in Bethlehem in two days, but how did this magic pairing happen? I have no idea. I see they didn’t play it the previous night, so maybe Melt was just hanging around. Because Ron stayed out for the next song and their guitarist came out and played too. And that next song was a cover of Paranoid by Black Sabbath. Not something you expect to hear at a Decemberists show. However, Ozzy died earlier that day so it seemed a nice tribute. Colin took the drums and John Moen sang. He did a fairly decent Ozzy impression (getting everyone to clap and going crazeee), but hilariously he didn’t know the words at all. How is that possible? (more…)
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