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The Andrew-est Bird’s Sing the Prettiest Songs |
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Written by and photos by BRIAN LELI
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Friday, 19 September 2008 |
Watching Andrew Bird perform live is what I imagine it would be like to watch a mad scientist who is completely immersed in his work; moving around the workshop in a somewhat methodical, somewhat random manner, tinkering with several devices at a time. Every Bird show is a unique one, as he constructs, then loops different elements of sound to create his own beautiful form of controlled chaos.
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Andrew Bird
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 Entertainment
 Art
Pritzker Pavilion
Chicago, Il
September 3, 2008
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There's a lot of room for things to go horribly wrong with an approach like this, but Bird nails it in a way that seems effortless. Watching Bird live at the Pritzker Pavilion is like watching that same mad scientist, but in a sort of dissection amphitheater setting with amazing visual stimuli and flawless audio.
The show started with several solo performances by Bird, where he demonstrated this mad scientist approach of constructing, looping, layering, then mesmerizing every person watching...And there were A LOT of people watching. It's reported that 13,000 or so were on hand. An ode to the captivating performance by Bird, looking around this swarm of audience members during his set I was reminded of the audience watching Pink during his concert/neo-nazi rally hallucinations in Pink Floyd's The Wall; a sea of sedated faces looking on calmly, curiously in awe.
Bird was eventually joined by a full band, for the remainder of the set, and they continued to play a magical one, including the songs "A Nervous Tic Motion of the Head to the Left", "Imitosis", "Fiery Crash", "Plasticities", "Skin Is, My" and "Fake Palindromes". In addition to the stellar performance, many of the songs featured accompanying visuals on the jumbo screens. Much of the visuals contained an interesting selection of stop-motion video and animation that was very fitting (similar to Bird's video for the song "Lull"). It was quite a sight to accompany quite a sound.
Bird seemed genuinely proud to be standing on that stage, and to be sharing the night with so many people. This was even more of a monumental performance for Bird as it was for his fans.
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