Our brilliant guest blogger, Britt Lundborg, attended last night’s gig and offers a full report! Broken Bells have been widely touted in the press as the snazzy collaboration between Shins front man, James Mercer, and producer extraordinaire, Danger Mouse. Last night they played their first gig in New York at the Music Hall Of Williamsburg and, rather surprisingly, sold it out. Well, perhaps it isn’t surprising given the Shins’ rabid shoegaze fan base. I was a little amazed that Shins fans even knew where Williamsburg was. The image of Broken Bells we’ve been fed is of two guys (one a sad troubadour, the other a morose knob-twiddler), so imagine the shock when seven dudes stroll out on stage. I suppose you need an extra large crew for tunes as well-wrought and highly-orchestrated as Broken Bells’ are. Now, I would be lying if I said that Mercer and co. then proceeded to get freak-busy on the mic, but they did kick up some nicely-mannered dust. By nicely-mannered, I mean they played their entire album front to back and inserted tiny flourishes when it mattered. On ‘Ghost Inside’, a grinding bass line pulsed the floorboards and threw the song’s aching sexiness all the way to the back of the house. James Mercer’s voice sounded beautifully soulful, like a hopeful bird chirping down a dark mine. Danger Mouse tended to stay behind the drums, but showed off his musical dexterity strumming a guitar and playing the keyboard during their encore. For this, they played 2 covers: Neil Diamond’s ‘Don’t…’ and Tommy James & The Shondells’ ‘Crimson…’, which were both epically great. Perhaps playing songs written by others untethers them.
Read the remainder of this review AFTER THE JUMP…
A thin melancholic edge grazes each of Broken Bells’ pop nuggets and that darkness was amplified by being played live. On record, the songs have been scrubbed to a well-produced sheen. This is Broken Bells’ greatest feat, but also its largest problem. For songs that are genius-level catchy, they feel impersonal. A projector streamed shapes and anthropomorphic bodies (recognizable from the band’s website and record art) over the band during the show, which threw the band into dark shadow most of the time. Not only did this increase the sense of distance between audience and band, but it also made them appear packaged. As though nothing could shatter the carefully-crafted veneer of the BB brand. But who am I to complain? Their little pop experiment does what it says on the packaging: cool, calm, camouflaged.
STREAM: Broken Bells – The High Road
