The Fiery Furnaces took the Troubadour stage on Thursday, September 22nd. The brother and sister duo, Eleanor and Matt Friedberger, and their backing guitarist and drummer played about an hour set (not including the encore) that had most of the audience absorbed for the duration. During their set they played a lot of material off their new record Rehearsing My Choir, which is due out on October 25th from Rough Trade, in addition to material of their previous two full-lengths. This was my first time seeing The Fiery Furnaces, though I have been a fan since Gallowsbirds Bark, and I walked away from the show mostly satisfied. My only overall complaint would be that I developed a minor dislike for Matt Friedberger during certain portions of the set.
When Matt initially walked on stage before their set to check his set-up, a small group of fans in front started clapping for him and he looked at them and held up a hand as if saying stop. Unfortunately, his body language and facial expression didnt communicate a bashful and humble, ahh shucks, oh stop sort of message, but rather a disgust at these people and almost indicating how dare they clap. Maybe it was just a bad night for him, to truly give him the benefit of the doubt. Towards the end of the set, mid song, he yelled into his microphone, Turn up my f^cking monitor. Now, I understand with musicians that this is a major reoccurring problem, but a bit of professionalism is always appreciated when addressing the sound man. This, combined with the display in the beginning and some keyboard issues in the middle of the set, to me, made Matt look like a fussy, indie-rock primaddona. It was unfortunate because he seemed to have some pretty diehard fans there to see the band and these displays made him look like he didnt have any respect for them.
So now that Im done harping on Matt, lets move onto the meat of The Fiery Furnaces set. The band played a pretty good set overall. The Troub was the perfect setting for their slightly eerie, at times carnival sounding, cousin of prog rock sound. Matts Rhodes keyboard, which he commands beautifully, is mostly responsible for the Furnaces trademark dissonant, spectral sound.
Eleanor serves as a perfect front woman, taking over almost all of the singing duties. Her slightly staccato and monotone voice is one of the most unique female sounding voices in rock and roll right now. Eleanor had a music stand in front of her for much of the set which held a booklet of their song lyrics. I guess she feared she would forget them. When she plays she obviously take cues from Matt sometimes and almost looks as if she is eying him for approval. The bands drummer is also entertaining to watch and makes some of the oddest facial expressions that Ive ever seen a drummer make (think deranged vagrant muttering to himself).
After a pretty long set, The Furnaces encore started with the brother and sister duo taking the stage alone to perform two songs. It was exciting to see them by themselves, but I think that this solo performance might have been better in the middle of the set almost as an intermission for the rest of the band, rather than as an encore, which slowed the show down. The rest of band then joined Eleanor and Matt on stage for two more songs and the night was finished. I walked away enjoying the show, even if the band wasnt very dynamic, their music was great!
