While I consider myself a Fiery Furnaces novice at best, I still had this uncontrollable urge to see The Fiery Furnaces. I even went so far as to buy a ticket to the show within the first couple of days tickets had gone on sale. Surprinsingly, it wasn't a sold out show. Still, for a Monday night, there was a good crowd onhand to check 'em out. Opening the show was Andrew Whiteman performing as Apostle of Hustle, but solo. Having seen the band version of Apostle of Hustle twice, the stripped down solo version was a drastically different entity. What was impressive was Andrew's ability to use a looper to loop his guitar arrangements, then to initiate drum machine beats, and then to build on top of these arrangements with vocals and more guitar playing. Some of you may have seen Feist do some thing similar during some of her shows. Andrew was more impressive because he did this during his entire set. The stripped down arrangements leaned towards a more Latin rhythmic feel in the music so that even an AoH pop song like "Energy of Death" sounded almost bossa nova. I'm still partial to the full band version of Apostle of Hustle, but otherwise solo Apostle of Hustle was still quite good. Oh, and Andrew borrowed Eleanor Friedberger's amp. How nice of her.The Fiery Furnaces brother-sister duo of Matthew and Eleanor Friedberger's was rounded out by a couple of gentleman on bass guitar and drums. While the musicianship was good all around with the bassist and drummer particularly capable, their was a punky attitude towards the performance that kept the music grounded. I didn't find appealing the half-hour long portion of the set dedicated to tracks from the new album. More often than not there were only hints at melody, odd time signatures and half-spoken/half-sung lyrics which all added up to a period of challenging listening. This doesn't bode well for the new album "Rehearsing My Choir". In addition, the mic sound levels didn't sound quite right, as Eleanor's vocals in particular were an aural blur. It didn't help that Eleanor was also nursing a 'Canadian' cold(sounding more and more like her grandmother, ha ha), although I thought she got through considerably well in my opinion. Things fared better after this when the band played some material I assumed was older material by the reaction of the crowd. The more conventional pop structures were a welcome improvement to their set. Sorry, I won't pretend to know any of the song titles, so let's just say they likely played material off "Blueberry Boat" and "Gallowsbird's Bark" and leave it at that.
The encore was an interesting medley of tunes, driven by the harsh yet melodic keyboard sounds played by Matthew and complimented by Eleanor's cool vocals. At one point, Matthew and Eleanor yelled out for requests which resulted in a flurry of audience chatter of different song titles. Someone yelled out "Here Comes The Summer", coincidentally the only song I knew and the one that I was hoping they'd perform. Matthew hinted at the song when for a moment he mimiced the guitar part of the song on his keyboard. Eleanor and Matthew consulted for a moment but I got the impression that maybe Eleanor couldn't remember the lyrics because they didn't end up playing the song and they played another song instead. I'll have to give my copies of "Blueberry Boat" and "EP" more thorough listens before I make my final judgement on The Fiery Furnaces. As I mentioned above, I found some of The Fiery Furnaces new songs to be challenging listening, and that could probably apply to some of their older material as well. Challenging doesn't necessarily mean bad but challenging doesn't always mean fun.
Related links
- my photos from the show.
- chromewaves' review.
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Just a reminder that controller.controller's debut album "X-Amounts" was released yesterday. I picked up my copy at Rotate This for $12.98. Nirmala and someone else from the band were interviewed by Dave Bookman on 102.1 the edge yesterday when Nirmala revealed that the title "X-amounts" has to do with 'X' being a variable and then said some rigamarole about 'uncertainty'. It was actually an interesting comment, but it sort of went over my head. They also mentioned that Rob Sanzo produced their new album, and as a result provided a capable hand in bringing out the bottom-end of the music. I haven't opened up my copy of yet but when I finally do it'll be interesting to compare it to their "History" EP. Lastly, they mentioned that their Toronto CD release show will occur November 25th at Spin Gallery. I can hardly wait. Oh, and the album cover is quite rad. BTW, the band also launched their newly redesigned website.
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