THE DECEMBERISTS (Royal Festival Hall, 02/10/07)


Sets heavy with B-sides and rarities are often a recipe for disaster, but Portland’s favourite sons The Decemberists carried off a performance peppered with the more obscure tracks from their back catalogue with commendable panache. It helps that their literate sea-shanties and Tim Burton-esque gothic ballads don’t lend themselves to crowd-pleasing singles in any case (although O Valencia! naturally made an appearance) but to begin a headline show like this with the 18-minute, EP-only epic “The Tain” nevertheless displayed a certain testicular fortitude. It was a ploy that worked- many of the best moments came from relative obscurities like After the Bombs and the Culling of the Fold, although it goes without saying that the Crane Wife Pt. 1 (with audible glockenspiel!) was the show’s lusciously beautiful highlight. Colin Meloy’s a genial, engaging frontman and a fine raconteur to boot, despite his geeky demeanour and his acute case of Wayne Coyne Syndrome (which renders him incapable of shutting up). His earnest, folsky croon is an acquired taste, but it fits his music like a glove and carried well in the stylish environs of the Royal Festival Hall. The rest of his compatriots are a fun, energetic and talented bunch, most notably Jenny Conlee, whose sumptuous wurlitzer and accordion stylings recalled Sunset Rubdown at their crazed carnival best.



But despite the show’s many qualities, I couldn’t help but think that the band tended to play it too safe, often to the point of staidness. The fully-seated venue and the fusty, impassive audience scuttled Meloy’s unashamed love of audience participation (except for superb set closer The Mariner’s Revenger, where he implored the audience to scream as if they were collectively being eaten by a giant shark) and though the acoustics were hard to fault, the band didn’t really add new musical elements to the mix. As a result, it was hard to fault as a rendition of their recorded work (and you can’t knock them for effort), but for an so act defined by their characteristic sense of lyrical drama, one would have hoped for something more. Great fun, but a missed opportunity nonetheless.