The Decemberists at Overture Hall
Vocalist-guitarist Colin Meloy and company gathered in front of a blue-lit, snakeskin-like backdrop as the lights dimmed Wednesday night in Overture Hall and The Decemberists’ Jenny Conlee fired up her droning organ prelude to the Portland quintet’s latest album The Hazards Of Love. The band performed Hazards its entirety for the first of two sets, and because it's an ambitious, if ridiculously grandiose, concept album, the performance called for such theatrical flourishes. Each number ran tightly into the next, while multiple roadies assisted Meloy, guitarist Chris Funk, and bassist Nate Query with mid-song instrument swaps (guitars for bouzoukis, electric bass for stand-up, and 12- for six-string guitars). As a result, drummer John Moen’s limbs were constantly busy, his tight playing helping tie it all together. Lavender Diamond’s Becky Stark and My Brightest Diamond’s Shara Worden joined forces with the band to sing the roles of “Margaret” and “The Forest Queen” on the album.
While Funk and Query played with a modest stage presence, Meloy was a beacon of enthusiasm. His giant swoop of hair flapped across his forehead as he hunched over and jumped around to the surprisingly ballsy, borderline-metal passages of songs like “The Queen’s Rebuke/The Crossing.” In a sparkling black dress, a grinning Worden worked the stage like a crazed 8-year-old, nailing her parts in “The Queen’s Rebuke” with ease. Stark’s more ethereal performance centered on dancing around in her bridal-looking dress, only adding to the stoner-rock-spiritual feel of some of the album's heavier passages.
The forehead-slapping moments of Hazards were no less absurd during the live show: It was still impossible to get through “Margaret In Captivity” without noticing how much a certain guitar figure sounds like the opening riff of Bon Jovi’s “Wanted Dead Or Alive.” And watching the band awkwardly play under the pre-recorded children’s choir of “The Hazards Of Love 3 (Revenge!)” was a bit much.
Meloy didn’t address the crowd or break the band’s almost in-character presence until the end of the excellent set-closing ballad “The Hazards Of Love 4 (The Drowned),” after which he thanked the audience and sent off everyone for an intermission. When the band returned, they went directly into “The Crane Wife 3,” which—after a set comprised of entirely new material—drew screams of approval from the crowd. “I like this stage. It’s nice and stable,” Meloy joked between songs, recalling the band’s 2007 stop at the Orpheum Theatre, when he invited too many crowd members onto the Orpheum's weirdly high stage and ended up nearly destroying it. “I’m glad nobody has tried to sue me,” he said, dashing and dorky.
The second set proceeded to reach across the band's four-album discography, and even included a new tune called “Rocks In The Box” that seemed like a return to the poppier moments of 2003’s Her Majesty. After running through fan favorites like the star-crossed-suicide tale “We Both Go Down Together,” “Yankee Bayonet (I Will Be Home Then)” with an adorable duet with Worden, and of course “O Valencia,” they wrapped up their proper set with an ass-kicking cover of Heart’s “Crazy On You.” Stark and Worden swapped lines and danced across the stage, as Funk, Meloy, Moen, and Conlee vibrantly rocked the fuck out.
After Meloy reprised with a delicate take on “Red Right Ankle,” he told the audience that he was going to share a side of himself “that no one ever gets to see.” “I’m going to play the worst song I have ever written. It was originally supposed to evolve into a good song. This did not happen,” Meloy stated before fulfilling his promise with a ridiculous song entitled “Dracula’s Daughter.” Finally, the band wrapped up the night with the shuffle of “Sons And Daughters.” Meloy wound out the song with a giant audience sing-along of the line “hear all the bombs, they fade away.” Meloy then took a bow, thanked the audience several times, and slapped fives with almost everyone in the front row.
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