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Archive for the ‘The Decemberists’ Category

The Decemberists (Wind Creek Event Center, Bethlehem, PA, July 22, 2025)

Posted in Bethlehem, PA, Melt, Merce Lemon, The Decemberists, Wind Creek Event Center on July 23, 2025| Leave a Comment »

[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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Merce Lemon (Wind Creek Event Center, Bethlehem, PA, July 22, 2025) [THE DECEMBERISTS]

Posted in Bethlehem, PA, Melt, Merce Lemon, The Decemberists, Wind Creek Event Center on July 22, 2025| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: July 22, 2025] Merce Lemon 

I didn’t know Merce Lemon before this show.  Normally I look up an opening band, but I just didn’t for this show.

They came out as a five piece (although Merce Lemon is apparently the lead singer and it is her project).  She was joined by Reid Magette who played some utterly fantastic lead lines in the songs.  Pat Coyle on drums was fun to watch because the songs weren’t complicated, but he threw in lots of flourishes here and there to make them really come to life.  Alvin Row was playing lap steel for the whole show.  Sometimes his leads lurred with Reid’s but overall he provided some great ambient sounds.  And Benji on nass occasionally made some great feedbacking noises on these otherwise mellow songs.

Merce described her band in an interview with Post-Trash:.

My drummer Pat Coyle plays under his name. Benji, who plays bass, also plays under Clear Creek SP. Reid, my guitarist, plays under I4A, which stands for Ideas for Advertisements. Spencer, who played keys on the album, plays ambient music under the name Alvin Row. We recently played a show at my friend’s sauna, which has an outdoor space. He was playing ambient lap steel, and it made me cry.

They played six songs, each one at least 5 minutes long.  The songs started out quietly but they usually had really exciting moments and the crowd was easily won over by them.  The last song in particular had a great build up and conclusion.

Merce never mentioned the band’s name (or anything more than I’m Merce) and I don’t know what songs they played, except for a Bonnie “Prince” Billy cover of “I See a Darkness.”

I’m hopeful that someone will post the setlist as I really don’t know what they played.

But yeah, overall a very enjoyable opening act.

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The Decemberists (Fillmore Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, May 8, 2024)

Posted in Philadelphia, PA, Ratboys, The Decemberists, The Fillmore Philadelphia on May 9, 2024| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: May 8, 2024] The Decemberists     

This was our fourth time seeing The Decemberists (which is frankly too low a number for how much we love them).  But this show was on my birthday!  Imagine that.

I have actually never been to a show on my birthday before, mostly because I like to spend my birthday with my family.  But this was a band that my wife wanted to see as well, so we invited the kids along too, for a fun birthday night.

Sadly, my daughter was on crutches so she chose to stay home, but my son came even though he didn’t think he knew The Decemberists very well.

It turns out he knows them from osmosis and recognized a lot of songs from having heard his parents play them.  He was also pleasantly surprised by how much they rocked (my wife likes the folkier side and she plays them more).

And the show opened with a folky vibe.

There were light fixtures out front and Colin Meloy wandered out with his acoustic guitar and played “Red Right Ankle.”  He sounded great and the ambient lighting was perfect.  He described it as singing in a grotto.  Then Jenny Conlee came out with her accordion and the rest of the band came out soon after.  Nate Query with is upright bass, Chris Funk at his guitar and Lizzy Ellison singing as they played a lovely June Hymn.

They stayed acoustic for the new song All I Want is You complete with Victor Nash on horns and keys.  John Moen came out, the cool lights were removed and the “grotto” was taken away.  They spread out and used the full stage which was delicately designed with floral patterns and curtains.

With the full band out they played Don’t Carry it All with Chris Funk playing lap steel guitar.  Then they played the new song Burial Ground, after which Colin apologized for rhyming the word malaria in the song in case anyone in the audience was currently suffering from it.

The Decemberists could play pretty much anything in their catalog and I’d be happy.  And now that they have so many albums out there are fewer and fewer older songs that they can squeeze in.  So if they can only fit one part of The Crane Wife, I’ll take it.

After a rousing and fun The Sporting Life, with a little coda from The Smiths, Ellison got to show off her vocal chops with a fantastic The Queen’s Rebuke/The Crossing.  The Hazards of Love remains my favorite album of theirs and I love any song they play from it (this was the only one tonight).  But the heavy jamming during The Crossing was great–with some serious metal chords blasting out between the Hammond organ chords. (more…)

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Ratboys (Fillmore Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, May 8, 2024) [THE DECEMBERISTS]

Posted in Philadelphia, PA, Ratboys, The Decemberists, The Fillmore Philadelphia on May 8, 2024| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: May 8, 2024] Ratboys

I saw Ratboys headline a show in November and it was great.  They have been together since 2010, formed by singer/guitarist Julia Steiner and guitar wizard David Sagan.

When I saw them, Steiner told us how pleased she was to have so many different guitars on tour with her, because they were all tuned differently–it made things so easy!  She had a flying V, which was in standard tuning.

That’s the only guitar she used for this set, so I’m guessing all six of the songs they played were in standard tuning.

The set opened the same with, with the blistering rocker “Making Noise for the Ones You Love.”  It’s like a statement of purpose that totally rocks for like 90 seconds before there’s even vocals.

Morning Zoo slows things down and lets you know the diversity of the band’s sound. (more…)

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The Decemberists : Arise from the Bunkers Tour (The Met Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, August 25, 2022)

Posted in Philadelphia, PA, The Decemberists, The Met Philadelphia on August 26, 2022| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: August 25, 2022] The Decemberists

The Decemberists are one of our favorite bands and yet we have seen them very few times.  We were supposed to see them on their last tour but they cancelled our show because Colin lost his voice.

Then last year’s show was postponed for COVID.

Finally it was rescheduled.

We were on the left side of the stage, in front of Jenny Conlee.  I had a great view of her Leslie cabinet and speaker and it was really neat watching it spin faster and faster as the sound got bigger and wilder. (more…)

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Jake Xerxes Fussell (The Met Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, August 25, 2022) [THE DECEMBERISTS]

Posted in Brigid Mae Power, Jake Xerxes Fussell, Philadelphia, PA, Suede, The Decemberists, The Met Philadelphia on August 25, 2022| Leave a Comment »

[ATTENDED: August 25, 2022] Jake Xerxes Fussell

The Decemberists are one of our favorite bands and yet we have seen them very few times.  We were supposed to see them on their last tour but they cancelled our show because Colin lost his voice.

Then last year’s show was postponed for COVID.

Finally it was rescheduled.  Originally the support was from Brigid Mae Power who I don’t know.  But at some point she backed out and the new support came from Jake Xerxes Fussell who I also had never heard of.

For whatever reason, we arrived pretty late and decided to get merch since the line was short. We walked in half way through Fussell’s set.  It was just him and his electric guitar

So, Jake Xerxes Fussell is a guitarist who sings traditional folk songs.  No, that’s not exactly right.  He songs untraditional folks songs–songs that were literally sung by the folk, most of which were never recorded until a chronicler like Folkways came along.

The first song we heard was also the first song he played on his recent Tiny Desk Concert and this is how they described it:

Jake Xerxes Fussell’s Tiny Desk (home) concert opens with the eyebrow raising lyric, “I’ve got fresh fish this morning, ladies. They are gilded with gold and you may find a diamond in their mouths.” It was originally sung by a fishmonger in Florida and captured in a field recording. Coming from Fussell, it sounds as lived-in as his worn Telecaster looks. It’s immediate, but somehow out-of-time. Fussell found the tune at the Library of Congress, part of his process of collecting and curating traditional, public domain folk songs, and reinterpreting them through his own lens.

His voice is deep and old-sounding.  He fills these songs with the appropriate feeling that the original singer intended.   His guitar playing was quite good as well.

He won over the audience pretty easily, too.   If I had been there to see him or, more importantly, if I wasn’t super excited for The Decemberists, I would have enjoyed his set a lot more.  As it was I enjoyed the set quite a bit, but I really wanted to hear the main band.

I’m not sure I’d listen to his records, but I would enjoy seeing him live.

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The Decemberists: 20 Years Before the Mast: 20th Anniversary Tour (The Met Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, August 17, 2021) [rescheduled date CANCELLED]

Posted in Coronavirus, Philadelphia, PA, Postponed, Quarantine, The Decemberists, The Met Philadelphia on August 17, 2021| Leave a Comment »

[CANCELLED: August 17, 2021] The Decemberists: 20 Years Before the Mast [rescheduled from August 18, 2020]

indexOn March 17, The Decemberists officially cancelled this tour.  I had SUCH GOOD SEATS FOR THIS SHOW!!!!  If They are cancelling a show in August, it doesn’t bode well for the rest of the summer.

* Tour Update * We were really hoping against hope to be able to bring this 20th/21st anniversary show on the road this summer. And while there’s every reason to be optimistic about the state of the pandemic and the possibility of live shows in the future, we don’t think it’s going to happen in July and August of this year. There’s so much uncertainty about playing these shows safely, especially the indoor ones, that we thought the best decision is to cancel. Yeah, we’re bummed. Refunds are available now at point of purchase. We plan on touring next summer; whether that will be in the vein of a similar tour or something new altogether, it’s too soon to say. We promise to be out there again, seeing all your shining, singing faces — covered or uncovered. In the meantime, we’re putting together a different kind of anniversary celebration, and we’ll be in touch on that soon. Yours, The Decemberists

I’ve been a fan of The Decemberists for years and I am surprised by how few times I’ve seen them.  We were supposed to see them two years ago and then Colin Meloy’s voice went out just in time for our show, so that was cancelled.

I was surprised that this tour didn’t include a stop in Red Bank, but a show at the Met in Philly is almost as good.

I was really really hoping that this show wouldn’t be postponed–it seemed like a milestone date somehow.  Plus, I had AMAZING seats.  Fortunately, the show was postponed to exactly a year minus a day away (as many shows tend to be) and my amazing seats are still good.

Here’s their official word on the postponement from May 27:

Adored Mailing List Recipients,

As you might remember from previous emails, there was some discussion over whether or not 2020 was *in fact* the 20th Anniversary of The Decemberists. Did the band start out in 2000? Or was 2001 our proper debut? There are recollections of Decemberists shows happening in 2000 in some form, and yet our first website and logo proclaimed us “Est. 2001” — for reasons lost to time. Well, we’re happy to report that that controversy is settled once and for all, and it only took a global pandemic to do so.

And so: Twenty Years Before the Mast, The Decemberists’ 20th Anniversary Tour will be coming to your town in the summer of 2021, not this summer.

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Ann Patchett–“How to Practice” (New Yorker, March 1, 2021)

Posted in Ann Patchett, Books about writers, Essays, New Yorker, Parenting, The Decemberists, Typewriters on May 14, 2021| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: THE DECEMBERISTS 20th Anniversary Celebration Streaming Shows (April 11, 2021).

Even though I love live shows, I don’t really like streaming shows.  It’s not that there’s anything wrong with them, it’s just that I don’t tend to watch live music much at home.  And, most of the time i tend to forget the show until the stream is over.

But since Sarah and I were supposed to see The Decemberists and our shows were cancelled, I though I’d treat her to these shows for her birthday.

The first show was pretty great–a deep dive into lots of old songs.

As they start, Colin says this is the first time we’ve played….ever together as a live band.

They open this set with Don’t Carry It All from The King is Dead.  Colin plays harmonica and I was really surprised to realize that drummer John Moen is singing the higher backing vocals (I’d always assumed it was keyboardist Jenny Conlee).

They stick with King for “All Arise” where you can really see Jenny’s massive keyboard array!

There’s a little extended jam at the end, which Colin calls “a proper honky tonk.”

They move to What a Terrible World, What a Beautiful World album for “Wrong Year” which Colin says is emblematic of the previous year.  Colin plays the acoustic 12 string and Chris Funk is on the electric 12 string.

Jenny claps: “since there’s no audience we have to support ourselves.  Should we clap for ourselves?”

Colin says the tour (that was recently cancelled) would have been their 20th anniversary tour.  These song would have made up the set list.

This next song is early mid period that John Moen: he was just laying around being a man about town a the time.  “On the Bus Mall” [from Picaresque] sounds great with Nate Query getting a great deep sound on the upright bass.

Colin has as sip of wine and mentions that someone has made a supercut of every time he drinks a sip of wine and goes mmm.  “It’s normal to go mmm after a drink of wine.  it heightens the experience.”  And yet when you put hem all together….

Up next is a song about dead children and this is the first of many.  “Leslie Anne Levine” (from Castaways and Cutouts) sounds great with the 12 string, the accordion and bowed upright bass.

Colin jokes that it wouldn’t be an authentic Decemberists experience without him forgetting lot of words–so far I’m doing alright.

Up next is a glorious “The Crane Wife Parts 1, 2 & 3,” always fun to heae these together.  Nate’s bowed bass sounds deep and resonant but the song gets even bigger when he switches to electric bass.  Jenny is playing organ and glockenspiel.  There’s a seamless transition to part 2 with Chris Funk on pedal steel.  As they switch to Part 3, Jenny keeps the song going on organ while Colin gets an 8 string acoustic guitar.

It’s followed immediately by “The Island” which sounds so good I really hope to see this song live one day.  I love the intensity of Jenny’s keys and the great riffing and they even switch it up in the middle as John takes over keys, Jenny plays accordion, Chris is on pedal steel and Nate’s on the bowed bass.  The end is magnificent.  As they wrap up Colin jokes, “those were some jazz chords you were playing, there, Johnny.”

Colin states that they went through strict COVID protocol so they could do the next song.  “Raincoat Song” is a deep cut==a pretty acoustic song with both of them singing into the same mic.  (“I haven’t been so close to another man in many months.”  “Only harmonize into one microphone with you pod.”)

As they get ready for the next song, Colin says this is an epic jam set, apologies of epic jams are not your thing.  Jenny says that if they were on stage during this delay they’d either jam out or tell dad jokes: Nate: “How do you make an octopus laugh?  Tentickles.”

As Chris starts warming u his new guitar Colin says “John Carpenter on guitar.”  That’s the biggest complement you can give him.

Then we are off to a mystical land with “Rusalka, Rusalka” a new song I don’t know very well.  I really enjoyed the sound of it and need to check out the later cuts on I’ll be Your Girl.  The song has Chris on mandolin and harp samples from Jenny.

Colin gets a guitar but changes his mind as asks for The Reverend instead.  Jenny plays circus/instrument changing music.

The new guitar sounds great, and indeed the whole of “Make You Better” sounds fantastic.

Before introducing the final song, Colin says “Stay safe out there.  We’re nearing the end of this thing.  If you can get your vaccine, get it; mask up, stay socially distanced.”  “Not a very sexy PSA for a rock n roll show.”

But anyhow, this is about people who drowned, so things could be ….worse.

They end with a rocking “Hazard of Love (Part 4)” with Chris Funk on pedal steel.

It was weird hearing these live, quite rocking songs and there being no audience to cheer. Even if I hate noisy crowds, the silence is worse.

[READ: November 20, 2020] “How to Practice”

This was Ann Patchett’s second long form non-fiction essay in six months in the New Yorker.

This one is all about getting rid of your stuff.

In my family, we treasure heirlooms and even things that have only minor sentimental value.  We’re not hoarders but we have a lot of stuff.

Patchett opens this essay by talking about a friend’s father who died.  He had amassed all kinds of things.  Each new stage of his life brought on a new interest or hobby–and the accoutrement that went with it.  Getting rid of things proved to be a burden to his children.

Because Patchett grew up with them and her friend’s father considered her like a daughter, he wanted her to get something meaningful.   For instance, a particular painting.  She liked it but “either you have a place for that sort of thing or you don’t.”

But after allocating the important stuff there was so much more

How had one man acquired so many extension cords, so many batteries and rosary beads? (more…)

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Sofia Samatar–“Reflections” [The 2020 Short Story Advent Calendar #8] (2019)

Posted in Boats, Canadian Content, Christmas, Colin Meloy, Coronavirus, Curses, Dreams, Fairport Convention, Folk Songs, Hingston & Olsen, Homelessness, Huh?, Letters, Prison, Quarantine, Sandy Denny, Shirley Collins, Short Story, Supernatural, The Decemberists, The Short Story Advent Calendar, Tiny Desk (Home) Concerts, Tiny Desk Concert, Violence on December 8, 2020| Leave a Comment »

SOUNDTRACK: SHIRLEY COLLINS: Tiny Desk (Home) Concert #109 (November 10, 2020).

There is no denying the first line of this blurb: “Shirley Collins is a legend.”  But like many legends, I find that I know of her more than I know about her.  It’s possible that I’d never heard her before this set.  And that may not be an unreasonable thing

 Her life story took the sort of twists you hear in the songs she sings, in her case, a broken heart, a painful divorce, and the loss of her voice. For 30 years, she couldn’t sing.

I don’t exactly understand what happened to her voice (that link doesn’t explain it), but her first album in over 30 years came out in 2016.

Now, here she is playing songs from Heart’s Ease, only the second album she’s made in the past 40 years. You hear her sing of a young sailor boy who saves his ship from robbers and is promised by his captain both gold and his daughter’s hand in marriage. The lad sinks the robber’s boat, only to be left to drown by that very same captain.

These unimaginable tales and that unadorned voice have influenced both British and American folk music since the 1960s, from Fairport Convention’s Sandy Denny to The Decemberists’ Colin Meloy. These tales of woe and whimsy are as timeless as Shirley Collins

So here is Shirley Collins, at 85, seated in the living room of her cottage in Lewes, East Sussex, accompanied by guitarist Ian Kearey, singing along to a few stringed instruments

She sings five songs.  At 85, her voice doesn’t sound amazing, but it does sound good.  And it’s more about the emotion she puts into these songs than the power of her voice.

She explains that in the 1950s, she took a field recording trip across the United States with Alan Lomax.  She heard “The Merry Golden Tree” in Arkansas.  It was still sung in England but had traveled across the Atlantic and then across the continent.

Kearey plays guitar for the first song, but switches to banjo for “Sweet Greens and Blues” a song her first husband Austin John marshall wrote 50 years ago.   She says the first line seems apt in 2020: “If we don’t make it this year let’s see what next year will bring.”

She heard “Wondrous Love” from a rural Alabama congregation.  The church was full of people from all over.  They sang this hymn in their old voices–“shrill and beautiful at the same time: the most incredible lovely noise you could hope to hear.”  Kearey gets a very cool metallic slide guitar sound for this song.

Before singing “Tell Me True” she tells the story of an American friend in Montana who sent her a vast British ensign flag from the Royal Navy.  He found it in a barn when he was 16 on holiday in rural Vermont.  He took it!  Now he sent it to her.  She thinks its from 1812, the Battle of Lake Champlain in vermont.  Woah

“Old Johnny Buckle” is a nonsense song, an upside down song that’s good fun to sing.  I imagine it could have been sung by Boy and Girl Scouts.  With silly lyrics like this

Old Mrs. Buckle went a’fishing one day
She caught her left leg in the clay
The toads and frogs all wobbled about
She ran to get a shovel to dig herself out

[READ: December 8, 2020] “Reflections”

This year, S. ordered me The Short Story Advent Calendar.  This is my fifth time reading the Calendar.  I didn’t know about the first one until it was long out of print (sigh), but each year since has been very enjoyable.  Here’s what they say this year

You know the drill by now. The 2020 Short Story Advent Calendar is a deluxe box set of individually bound short stories from some of the best writers in North America.

This year’s slipcase is a thing of beauty, too, with electric-yellow lining and spot-glossed lettering. It also comes wrapped in two rubber bands to keep those booklets snug in their beds.

As always, each story is a surprise, so you won’t know what you’re getting until you crack the seal every morning starting December 1. Once you’ve read that day’s story, check back here to read an exclusive interview with the author.

It’s December 8.  Sofia Samatar, author of A Stranger in Olondria, is glad she remembered to pack those seasickness tabs..  [Click the link to the H&O extras for the story].

This story was a challenge for me.  First because I didn’t realize that the two letters (the story is two letters on facing pages) were meant to be read separately.  At first I thought it was a series of disjointed, unfinished letters–a sort of failed attempt at communication.  Obviously that is very far from what the story is mean to be about. (more…)

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The Decemberists: 20 Years Before the Mast: 20th Anniversary Tour (The Met Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, August 18, 2020) [POSTPONED]

Posted in Coronavirus, Philadelphia, PA, Postponed, Quarantine, The Decemberists, The Met Philadelphia on August 18, 2020| Leave a Comment »

[POSTPONED: August 18, 2020] The Decemberists: 20 Years Before the Mast [moved to August 17, 2021]

indexI’ve been a fan of The Decemberists for years and I am surprised by how few times I’ve seen them.  We were supposed to see them two years ago and then Colin Meloy’s voice went out just in time for our show, so that was cancelled.

I was surprised that this tour didn’t include a stop in Red Bank, but a show at the Met in Philly is almost as good.

I was really really hoping that this show wouldn’t be postponed–it seemed like a milestone date somehow.  Plus, I had AMAZING seats.  Fortunately, the show was postponed to exactly a year minus a day away (as many shows tend to be) and my amazing seats are still good.

Here’s their official word on the postponement from May 27:

Adored Mailing List Recipients,

As you might remember from previous emails, there was some discussion over whether or not 2020 was *in fact* the 20th Anniversary of The Decemberists. Did the band start out in 2000? Or was 2001 our proper debut? There are recollections of Decemberists shows happening in 2000 in some form, and yet our first website and logo proclaimed us “Est. 2001” — for reasons lost to time. Well, we’re happy to report that that controversy is settled once and for all, and it only took a global pandemic to do so.

And so: Twenty Years Before the Mast, The Decemberists’ 20th Anniversary Tour will be coming to your town in the summer of 2021, not this summer.

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