A Loosely Avian Evening

Last night, I was reminded again of how damned short I am when I ended up right in the middle of the tallest crowd I've ever seen at First Unitarian Church, where I was to see William Elliott Whitmore, and, to a lesser extent, Red Sparowes. "See" is generous. I heard fine, but mostly, what I saw was a lot of people's backs. And the top of Whitmore's jaunty hat. But that's okay. I've kind of come to expect that from Church shows.

Whitmore's set, by the way, was amazing. Exactly what I thought it would be: one man and a banjo and some really great blues music. Imagine if Eddie Vedder channeled B.B. King and you'd have a bit of an idea of what to expect from a live performance by the Iowa farmer. Whitmore's music is low-key and acoustic, but he plays it with a surprising amount of energy. Nearly every song he sang after the first was an audience request, partly because he seems to genuinely care about his fans, but mostly, as he explained, because he "spent seventeen hours drinking yesterday" and was "too lazy to create a set list." Upon re-reading that sentence, I can see how you might perceive him as, oh, I don't know, an irresponsible or novice performer, but it's really just the opposite. His audience banter was the stuff that many veteran live performers can only aspire to. He had all of us eating out of the palm of his hand—my only complaint was that his set could have been longer.

After Whitmore's set, the basement at First Unitarian was filled with the sounds of different bird calls, obviously selected as a transition between Whitmore (whose latest album is called Song of the Blackbird) and Red Sparowes. Unfortunately, that wasn't enough to tie the two disparate acts together. At all. When Red Sparowes took the stage, they introduced themselves and thanked Whitmore, and that was the last time they paid attention to the audience until they announced their last song forty minutes later. Ordinarily, when a band is playing for the pure enjoyment of doing so, it's a good thing, but not so of Red Sparowes: it's nice when the audience doesn't feel completely ignored by the band. (Of course, judging from the banging heads I could see in the audience, a lot of people didn't seem to care.) This was especially jarring after Whitmore's collegiality toward the audience. Maybe I'd have minded less, though, were I not ultimately pretty bored by the Sparowes' music: atmospheric instrumental goth rock (I hesitate to call it metal, because it didn't really harbor metal's energy) that was played way too loud. I was far more interested in the projections behind the band: grainy, overexposed newsreel footage that made it clear that the Sparowes have politics, but not a message. From what I could gather in the films: Chairman Mao=bad. Firebombing=bad. Richard Nixon=bad. Kittens=cute. These things are givens: the reminders only served to distract me from the very loud, very discordant, and very dull (in my opinion) music being performed by the band onstage. I'd genuinely hoped that they'd grow on me as the set progressed, but other than a song whose first few chords sounded vaguely reminiscent of a Pixies song, I really just wanted the set to be over so that I could go home and let my ears recover.

At the end of the night, I'm even more of a Whitmore fan than I was going in, but I could go the rest of my life without another Red Sparowes concert. My advice to you is to make a point of seeing Whitmore when you next get an opportunity, but, unless you feel like wearing earplugs and doing some serious head banging, taking a pass on the Sparowes. But then that's just me.

Image of "Audubon Birds with Real Bird Calls," because we were too short to snap photos last night, via Christmas Treasures.