Can I Feel Useless And Low?

The Fiery Furnaces @ Socrates Sculpture Park, 8/26/2007
Restorative Beer (soundcheck) …. Nevers (instrumental intro) / In My Little Thatched Hut / I’m In No Mood / Black-Hearted Boy / Bitter Tea / Waiting To Know You / The Vietnamese Telephone Ministry / Oh Sweet Woods / Borneo / Benton Harbor Blues / Nevers (instrumental interlude) / Whistle Rhapsody / Teach Me Sweetheart / Bitter Tea (outro) / Single Again / Wicker Whatnots / Quay Cur / I’m Gonna Run / Here Comes The Summer / Blueberry Boat / Tropical Iceland / Spaniolated / Name Game / Birdie Brain / 1917

Aside from the wonderful novelty of seeing a show in my neighborhood, this was a very bad gig, and certainly the worst set I’ve ever seen the Fiery Furnaces play. Seriously, it seemed as though the band was trying very hard to get me to dislike some of my favorite songs, or at least lose respect for them as performers.

It was that bad.

The current live incarnation of the Fiery Furnaces has Eleanor Friedberger on vocals, Matthew Friedberger on keyboards, Jason Loewenstein on guitar, Bob D’Amico on drums, and Michael Goodman on percussion. They play the music in a style that can best be described as prog calypso, but with the clumsy, impatient dynamics of a shitty hardcore band. The arrangements kept or reworked some instrumental motifs, and completely threw out others, often resulting in performances that arbitrarily honored or exaggerated certain emphatic moments of the songs while completely steamrolling over other parts. Eleanor warped, mutilated, or otherwise eliminated the melodies from the songs, and mainly recited a steady flow of words as though she was doing an impression of an auctioneer.

I appreciate their desire to experiment, and I don’t doubt that they were having a good time, but the approach to this show displays an alarming lack of self-awareness regarding their strengths as musicians and songwriters, a disrespect for their own material, and a fundamental misunderstanding of how people connect with music. In previous versions of their live show, they rearranged their material to great effect, resulting in sets that delivered familiar songs in ways that were different from the recordings but very faithful to the essence of the material, but this band gutted the work in such a way that, at very best, the alternative arrangement was an uncomfortable novelty. At worst, and really, that’s about 90% of the set, anything that could cause a listener to feel any sort of sentimentality toward a piece of music was excised, to the point that I could hear songs that I love very deeply and kinda hate them.

Do they actually dislike their own material, or do they just despise the ritual of people going to concerts to hear songs that they love played in a way that is familiar to them? I support their desire to avoid the fast-food predictability of most shows, but their apparent disdain for the audience-artist bond seems increasingly misanthropic and self-defeating. It’s becoming very difficult for me to reconcile the careful, deliberate artistry of their albums with the lazy, thoughtless agitation of their current show. I’m not asking for them to slavishly replicate the recordings on stage, but I think they really ought to consider why their songs work, and apply that to the stage show. Basically, they need to slow things down to a reasonable pace, differentiate the tempos so that’s its not all one big indecipherable blur, and respect the melodies of the songs so that people can, you know, connect emotionally and maybe even sing along.

I’m not asking for anything they haven’t done before. If you’ve only seen the current version of the band, these songs are for you. I hate to be constantly apologizing for this band, but you should know that they are capable of being a wonderful live act.

The Fiery Furnaces “I Broke My Mind/Spaniolated/Single Again” (Live @ London Calling, 2003) – When I first saw the band live, they were just beginning to experiment with medleys, and so the set was mostly divided into seamless chunks of three or four songs. Between 2003 and early 2005, they really had it figured out perfectly — the songs were obviously different, but instantly recognizable, and the energy was upbeat but unrushed. Despite the fact that five Furnaces records have been completed since this period, “I Broke My Mind” remains unreleased, which is a bit odd given that it’s such a strong and instantly ingratiating tune.

Eleanor Friedberger “Quay Cur” (Live on East Village Radio, 6/26/2004) – I’m very fond of this rare Eleanor solo performance — her skills as a guitarist are limited enough so that she boils the songs down to their essence rather than erring on the side of over-complicating the arrangements like her brother, and she’s so comfortable with the host that she allows herself to be very playful and cute.

The Fiery Furnaces “South Is Only A Home / Blueberry Boat / Bow Wow / Birdie Brain / Inca Rag” (Live @ the Mod Club in Toronto, 9/12/2004) – The medley tour from late 2004 and early 2005 may be the greatest achievement of the band to date. The medley blended most of the songs from Gallowsbird’s Bark and Blueberry Boat into a 45 minute suite that retained the appeal of its components while having its own dynamics and internal logic. It’s a remarkable piece of work that in many ways improves on the source material (I often anticipate the medley changes when I hear the studio versions), and disrupts the typical concert format without eliminating the audience’s pleasure.

The Fiery Furnaces “Teach Me Sweetheart” (Live on KEXP, 4/6/2005) – Can it be all so simple? I must admit that I appreciate that they avoid the earnest, straightforward acoustic approach, but when they do it, it’s always so perfect and sweet.

The Fiery Furnaces “Waiting To Know You” (Live @ the 9:30 Club in Washington, DC 6/30/06) – I was especially dismayed by yesterday’s performance of “Waiting To Know You.” It’s a rather beautiful and sentimental song, but they went out of their way to make it blunt and ugly, and it just seemed like an insult to anyone who ever liked it. This version of the song from the previous rock-centric incarnation of the live band avoids the softness of the album version, but keeps the sweetness in a power-pop arrangement that reminds me of late-period Guided By Voices.

Elsewhere: Of Montreal recorded a cover of my favorite Royal Trux song and put it up their MySpace page. It’s a really pleasant surprise!

Also: The Gramophone guys went out for a nice dinner.