I’ve been trying to get out to more concerts. Why? I love music, and love seeing it live. This year has been a good one in terms of quality if not quantity. In April, I saw Ben Folds perform in New Jersey and in a few weeks, I’m going to see The Mountain Goats in Brooklyn. That’s two of my favorite artists in the same year – that’s not bad.
Monday night, we went to see Monsters of Folk in Philly. MOF is a bit of a supergoup made up of Jim James (of My Morning Jacket), M. Ward (who the Deschanel-obsessed might know as ‘the guy in She and Him’) and Mike Mogis and Conor Oberst (Bright Eyes). Months ago, when I heard about the project, I was intrigued and excited – the bands represented in MOF’s ranks are all bands that I like quite a bit, and their writing and vocal styles are all different enough that just seeing how they play off of one another would be interesting. I think the resulting album is very good, but sounds a bit subdued. That was anything but the case with their live show.
The band played for two hours with no break, switching instruments between most songs. The setlist was a good mix of material from the Monsters of Folk album and each of the members’ solo projects and changed gears pretty often between solos and duets and full-band rocking out that put a revivifying spin on some of the material. Like a rock-infused, all-electric version of Bright Eyes’ “Hit The Switch.”
I was talking about the show last night, and I mentioned that the biggest difference between the concert and the album is that the album seems to downplay the individuality of the individual voices.
The show was at the Academy of Music, which is maybe one of the coolest venues I’ve been in – it’s just absolutely gorgeous and felt really intimate, despite the packed house.
Monsters Of Folk
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
funny, one of the things i like about the record is how the individual voices are downplayed – and how seamlessly they come together on a song like ‘temazcal.’ it feels egoless and not showy… which i appreciate.
live i felt it wasn’t that way as much but still… they are all very nice boys so i have nothing bad to say (for once).
I was bummed that they didn’t do Temazcal. Like you, that’s maybe my favorite song on the album.
I don’t mean to make it sound like I don’t like the sound of the album, but I appreciated hearing some twists on familiar songs, like, for instance, all four of the guys shredding on electric guitars on a Bright Eyes song. It was a lot of fun.
Something else I dug was that they just seemed like four friends jamming out sometimes.
oh – it’s full on bromance time. they didn’t do temazcal?!!!! WTF?!!
ps i wish your commenting system allowed you to receive emails when someone else comments. i have to keep checking back.