Fleet Foxes: The Moody Theater: August 16, 2017

I've talked about my love for the Fleet Foxes several times, and so I was pretty excited when I saw that they would be coming to town, and playing the best venue around for that type of harmonic, beautiful indie rock.  I took the wife, knowing that she would actually enjoy a show like that, and scored seats up in the balcony that were pretty close to center stage.

The opening act was a group called Bedouine, which was a lovely lady playing guitar and singing while three dudes behind her tried their hardest not to doze off while they brushed drums and tickled keys.  It was truly lovely music, but so chill and light.  No lie, a girl in the row behind us fell asleep on the guy next to her.  Out cold.  The wife and I just kept giggling about how the whole theater was about to pass out and sleep right through the Foxes.  So we went and got more drinks instead.

The Foxes came out and they looked great, the instrumentation was awesome, the harmonies were tight, but up in the balcony, the level of echo and distortion that was used on the two microphones was so high that I honestly couldn't tell if Robin was singing in English or not.  My wife was seriously confused about what he was saying, and she was bummed because she had just read an article about how Pecknold had left the band to go to Columbia, and then came back with a bunch of deep literary references in his lyrics.  But he might as well have been singing in French for as much as we could tell, the echo and reverb was just so high on the mics.  I still loved the show, mainly because I already knew the words to half the songs and so it didn't matter if I couldn't quite catch his diction, but when he played songs from the second album, Helplessness Blues, I was just lost at understanding what he was talking about.  I talked to two friends who saw the show from the floor, and they said that the lyrics were crystal clear for them.  Bummer.

I was also surprised at how big of an actual show they made it.  You know, we're talking about a pretty quiet band, using harmony and lovely intricate musicianship to weave beauty in their songs. We aren't talking about a band that is going to thrash around and dance and kick.  And they didn't try to pull that sort of thing off (like the bummer First Aid Kit show where those girls tried to headbang and just came off badly), but they had a pretty legit light show and changing backdrop that made the stage interesting, and then they moved around enough to give you something interesting to look at as well.  Probably my favorite bit of the show was when everyone else left the stage and Robin Pecknold (the lead singer) stayed on with just his acoustic guitar and killed the "Tiger Mountain Peasant Song."  So stinkin' good.  This isn't from my show, but you'll get the flavor of the tune in solo form.

Loved the show, and I'll try to avoid the balcony in the future, in case there is an acoustics issue up there for all shows.  You should go check the band out, and if you are looking to try their albums out, go for the first one.