06.22.06

The Avett Brothers, live at Grimey’s Records–5/18/2006

Posted in avett brothers, cricket spazzes, hot live action - June 22nd, 2006 at 7:44 pm by Cricket

MySpace is like sticking your hand in a murky pond and pulling it out all covered in slime and dead bugs and yet I can’t stop going there. It’s insidious crack. Please let’s talk about anything else.

I know! What’s hilarious, cute as a bug on a leaf and has six legs? The Avett Brothers live! Yeah, I’m fairly sure I should be fired for that joke, but since I’m not willing to fire myself, I think I’m pretty safe. [WTF is that comment? Wow. Lame.--Mimi]

This past Sunday the Avett Brothers stopped by Grimey’s Records to play a little post-Bonnaroo show. This worked out great for me because almost all the bands I really wanted to see at Bonnaroo are playing at Mucklewain except the Avett Bros, and since I’ve seen them now, I feel somehow complete. Miss Bunny, Mimi, and I hauled ass down to see them, and I do mean hauled as Bunny was driving and she was a race car driver in a former life. [I'm thinking demolition derby.--Mimi] It’s one of the ten thousand things I love about her. She likes to get her g’s in where she can. I think we got some extra g’s this weekend just from being around the bouncy energy of the Avett Brothers.

So, those brothers Avett are in fact button-cute, hilarious, and put on an amazing show. I was surprised to find that CMT has a profile for them when I went looking for pictures. The CMT profile pic is what I expected our boys to look like, playing at being old timey and just goofy fun. In fact, the brothers, Seth and Scott, currently look like cute little clean-shaven garage rock boys from the 70s, and Bob Crawford looks more like a beatnik-y hep cat kind of guy, but maybe that was just the black clothes and the stand up bass? [SIGH. But what's their music like, Cricket? I'll tell everyone then--Seth Avett (guitar and kick drum), his brother, Scott (banjo and guitar) and Bob Crawford (upright bass). They sound a lot like Mercury Rev, sort of jangly and discordant and roots music meets crack.--Mimi]

The show was full of folks–as always, the sort of mixed and family friendly crowd I seem to find in Nashville outside of bars–all crammed into Grimey’s New and Preloved Music. Right there in the store, not in the venue downstairs. The cute record store boys produced a few beers from under the counter and handed them out to those of age, which added a sort of “hanging out in your best friend’s house” vibe to the whole show. Some other boys rattled around the area cleared for the band to play in, setting up as we all stood around waiting for the show to start.

My insane love of the Avett Brothers has been previously documented. In recent articles and reviews I’ve been seeing them described as “kitchen sink folk” which sounds clever and interesting but I don’t think that description really covers the range of bluesy, folksy, pop-y punk, not really bluegrass, indefinable kind of music that these boys make. They crank out a swirled near-mess of sounds that come together in just the right way without falling over the edge into discordant. The instruments are what make them country or bluegrass or what have you, but underlying sensibility is purely 70s rock and old punk. And despite already loving them, owning all their CDs etc., as soon as they came out and began to play I was struck by just how fucking good they are. Recordings do not do this band justice. [I am not a fan of their recorded music, for example, but they were amazing live.--Mimi] There is an incredible depth, fullness, richness, realness to their voices that conveys emotion in a way a recording just can’t do. They also are visibly immersed in each song in a way that is so pleasurable to watch and be part of at a live show.

Being the least professional person ever, besides perhaps Mimi, I did not manage to jot down the first song they played as I was fussing with my PBR can and my handbag and generally being jostled by the other patrons crammed in for the small show. [Just for that crack, I am not looking in my notes for the name of the song. And because you stuck me with the MGD.--Mimi] Also I was pretty distracted thinking all those lofty thoughts I wrote above about how awestruck I immediately was by their performance.

The intro to the second song, “Distraction #74,” brought us the first bit of banter between the three guys made me feel like I was watching some people genuinely happy to be making music. They seemed suffused with a gleeful calm, completely wrapped in their own creations. Third up was “Left on Laura, Left on Lisa” which is one of my favorite songs for the sweet way they sing “And I gave to you my ugly brown coat/You made it pretty when you put it on.” They also had a little tech trouble during this song, but they played on around and through it very professionally, not letting anything really distract from the music. Though why they were bothering to amplify at all in such a small space was a mystery to me, as they are basically an acoustic band, but loud–surely loud enough to fill a small room. [Is this foreshadowing like in a short story or novel? *makes mysterious sound effects*--Mimi]

Before they played “Please Pardon Yourself” they conferred and cutely chatted about what song to play, or rather what kind of song to play (happy or new or something different), proving them to be huge dorks of the kind that you want to take home and make sandwiches for and hang out with (and maybe corrupt a little bit). They went on pouring out an insane amount of energy for such a small little show. Scott’s banjo playing bordered on frenetic at times and he was bouncing around like a 15-year-old skater boy pogo-ing at his first punk show. [Sigh. You are bordering on groupie-ing. Shocking.--Mimi]

The first broken string came around this point in the show, causing them to make charming jokes about how it must be the weather, and then suggesting that they traveled in their own microclimate at all times, since they were always busting stuff. Despite the tech stuff and broken strings, they continued on and went right back into the music with same intensity with which they’d started playing. [This was pretty cute, I will admit it.--Mimi]

They opened “Denouncing November Blue” with Scott telling a hilarious story about how after seeing The Song Remains the Same he couldn’t stop emulating Robert Plant during his 9th grade talent show. I wish y’all had been there to see him tell the story. It completely caused me to have teenage fangirl spaz moment. Yeah, I love this band that much. In fact, even though I’m way older than these boys, they make me feel a bit like I’m in the 9th grade and they are the cool older boys playing at the high school dance. I probably wouldn’t double-take any of them if I was passing them on the street, but they put so much of themselves into playing that they are so charming and funny and totally crushable.

They unplugged completely after several more broken strings, drum pedal problems, and guitar pick-up problems. I think maybe it was even better when it was just them and their instruments, though I was right up front with only a low rack of used CDs between me and the band. Maybe the folks further back in the store couldn’t hear as well as I could as they started “Pretend Love” (which is an insanely hilarious bit of song writing and even funnier when you see them sing it). A bit of it, “Don’t you know I’m a gift, and I’m wrapped in truth/your birthday’s tomorrow, but I am not for you/But if I came with a present, I would bring you a clue/in hopes you’d finally see, that your feelings for me/will never be returned.” [This song is good. Funny and good.--Mimi]

Their seventh song was a new song they said they’d never played for anyone before and I totally tried to record it to my voicemail, but alas I proved technically inept so I can’t even listen to it again. Sad, no? They closed with an incredible version of “Talk on Indolence” (which was previously one of my least favorite songs of theirs, but was, as everything was, amazing to see live) and “Four Thieves Gone”. For some reason, even knowing the lyrics, “Four Thieves Gone” never made very much sense to me, but the light clicked on as I watched them and wow, it’s really sort of an incredible song, right? It tracks through the break-up of a band and the subsequent dispersing of the members like a child’s fairytale. It is at once sadly wistful and yet funny.

This is the kind of band that makes you remember why you go to live music and don’t just listen to CDs at home. I suspect every show they play is this charged with energy and they make each song just different enough to make it sound incredibly fresh every time. So go see them when and if you can and I’ll spare sharing the crappy phonecam pics with you. You can go have your own experience instead of vicariously partaking in mine. [What's wrong with phonecam pics? That's a direct shot at me, right?--Mimi]

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