Timothy and I lucked into New Pornographers tix on Thursday night because Jeremiah and Vanessa wanted to cover the Fiery Furnaces show at the Troub. What a score, especially since Neko Case and Destroyer were both going to be joining in.
It’s always to good to see a packed house for a show. As we walked in Destroyer, aka Dan Bejar, was opening with tracks from his prolific solo career. The beauty of pop music is that’s it’s timeless. Styles will come and go and guys like Destroyer will keep plugging out good music that most people won’t hear. Honestly, til that morning I hadn’t heard of him either. Thankfully there are record labels out there like Merge. Have they put out a bad record?
Ignorant is the best word to describe my knowledge of The New Pornographers. I’m so ignorant, I consider myself a Neko Case fan and I didn’t even know she played with them. Yeah yeah….sorry. The good news is that I was in for a huge treat when I found out A)she was in the band, and B) she was touring with them. Earlier in the day I listened to as much TNP music online as possible. A good place to start is the session they did on KCRW early in the year when the new record, Twin Cinema, was released. Also check out a couple earlier shows at www.justconcerts.com
With my little knowledge of the majority of their music and my crush on Neko I stood about halfway back on the floor and bopped back and forth as they got the crowd going. The New Pornographers have a huge advantage over other bands because there songs are so varied and with Destroyer on tour with them, they had three exceptional vocalist who all lead their own bands. Carl (A.C.) Newman doesn’t necessarily look like a rock star with his short red hair and innocent looks but has no trouble fronting the band on most tracks and working with everyone else on stage to bring out their best. The harmonies he and Neko create on songs like “Streets of Fire” and the current single, “Use It” create a stirring smooth and rough mix. As the set went on they reached into their back catalog for some crowd favorites like “Breakin’ The Law” and “To Wild Homes”. The show just kept getting better and for the encore Neko let her hair down then belted out “Letter From an Occupant”. “Sing Me Spanish Techno” finished things off then I ran outside and down the block to grab Bessy to bring back some cream for the fans. Stuck around for a while talking to everyone and eating ice cream then it was time to get back to the LBC.
