Fleet Foxes Live At The Tower Theater - 5/21/2011

The first sound to resonate out into the Tower Theater audience once the newly six-piece Fleet Foxes assembled on stage for the sold-out final show of their U.S. tour was a surprise - not some striking four part harmony a la past set opener "Sun Giant" or "Sun It Rises," which started off the band's debut EP and self-titled LP respectively, but the gentle jangling of two guitars. Choosing to open with new instrumental "The Cascades" was probably a self-aware acknowlegement of the band's heavy use of multi-tiered vocals, which could be deemed gimmicky if they weren't so damn breathtaking. The opener swelled with the addition of the rest of the Fleexes and subsided to end symmetrically in volume, giving way to driving Helplessness Blues closer "Grown Ocean."

From there, the Sub Pop sophomores played the majority of their catalogue, omitting only two tracks from the new LP and not much more from everything else. New songs like "Sim Bala Bim", "Battery Kinzie" and the momumentous "The Shrine/An Argument" sounded at home among popular favorites "Mykonos" and "Drops In The River." HB opener "Montezuma" seamlessly trasitioned into "oldie" "He Doesn't Know Why."

A few songs were slightly tweaked, too. "Tiger Mountain Peasant Song" was transformed from a naked acoustic guitar and vocal ballad to a full band arrangement with a jazz-influenced drum cadence evocative of Radiohead's "Pyramid Song." "Your Protector" featured two flutes played by multi-instrumentalist/vocalist Casey Wescott and new multi-instrumentalist Morgan Henderson, who also augmented the band's sound when needed with an alto clarinet, upright bass, fiddle and more.

Lead singer/guitarist Robin Pecknold's startling tenor could fill the entire auditorium on its own (in the past he's sung "Oliver James" unmiced) but the band's crafty use of musical peaks and valleys make their crescendos seem that much more beautifully massive. In fact, the band's live sound on the whole is much less restrained than their studio albums; during several climactic moments, drummer/vocalist J. Tillman hit only cymbals and nary a drumhead for four whole bars or more. Skyler Skjelset rotated between lead guitar and mandolin while the appearance of bassist/vocalist Christian Wargo's Höfner usually signified an older tune was next.

Other highlights included "Lorelai", which uses a 3/4 time signature to achieve an old-timey antiquated feel, perrenial set closer "Blue Ridge Mountains," and "Blue Spotted Tail" - if you sang this lullaby to your newborn every night, it'd probably grow up to be the greatest person in the world.

While there is not exactly much stage presence that can be easily derived from folk-pop (sorry, no marxophone power slides), the band had great audience interaction during breaks between songs - and they're actually pretty funny. Someone shouted, "You fucking rock!" and a band member immediately responded "Really? You should try AC/DC." At times, inaudible (but probably lame) shout-outs became nearly unbearable, but Tillman laughed them off, equating them to "a physical manifestation of an internet comment board." At one point, someone gave Pecknold a t-shirt with a snowflake on it that said "I'm Unique," a reference to the lyrics of title track "Helplessness Blues."

It's been noted that the singer's lyrical style has shifted from a vague extroversion involving nature to a more personal and explicit tone. A girl in front of me who must not have heard the new album yet let out a genuine involuntary chortle of empathetic understanding (and maybe a little commiseration?) after he sang HB's first line: "So now I am older than my mother and father when they had their daughter. Now what does that say about me?" Witnessing that was very touching.

While I've never really been fond of seated concerts, with so many subtlties in the music, I was happy to not deal with the standard distractions of standing in a crowd - the ridiculously tall guy who always ends up in front of me, the fat shirtless dude rubbing his sweat against me, the obnoxious tween texting and talking incessantly - and be audiologically and visually unimpeded for this show in particular. A couple other observations... Someone give their sound guy a fucking medal - you hear exactly the right amount of everything you're supposed to, nothing drowned out and nothing overpowering. One suggestion would be that, though of course the music speaks for itself, the band could always benefit from more dynamic lighting or the presence of some sort of stage aesthetic.

As the band closed their encore with "Helplessness Blues," the audience gave a standing ovation. The houselights came on and everyone filed out as Love's "The Red Telephone" played over the PA. I was thinking to myself how amazing it would be if Fleet Foxes ever released a live album when it occured to me that (at the risk of hyperbole) someday their music might be viewed in the same light as Forever Changes. As I walked outside into the dark, Arthur Lee hypnotically recited, "They're locking him up today, they're throwing away the key. I wonder who it will be tomorrow, you or me?"

Here's a couple videos I recorded: