Monsters Of Folk at Troxy
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| Photo from Gigwise |
Monsters Of Folk
The guys in Monsters Of Folk, particularly Bright Eyes' Conor Oberst, inspire an almost fanatical, blind devotion, maybe that's why I haven't heard a bad word said about their mammoth live show but for me I was a little underwhelmed by it all.
I've seen all the guys live before at their individual shows, in fact M. Ward and Jim James in My Morning Jacket have blown me away with their performances in the past (I've seen Bright Eyes and Conor solo a few times before but I've always found something lacking in his shows I must confess, maybe I'm missing something because I'm not an 18 year-old emo girl) but Monsters Of Folk I found to be a case of too many cooks.
You certainly couldn't complain about being short changed song-wise because they definitely packed them in. Lasting almost three hours, there was a jaw-dropping 35 tunes crammed in, including every song but one from the self-titled Monsters Of Folk album mixed in with a variety of solo tunes. It started off promisingly enough with a rousing version of Say Please, the lead single that seems to combine their talents to the best effect with each taking a verse and sounding like a proper, spirited collaboration between the "super-group". After a pleasantly countrified The Right Place, featuring lead vocals by Mr James (or Yim Yames as he seems to like to be known these days) that's where it started to go wrong for me as the show seemed to lean heavily on songs from the Bright Eyes catalogue. In fact, in addition to all the songs Conor sings on the new album, there were no less than nine Bright Eyes songs in total, whereas M. Ward and James only got around five each. I do realise that there are two guys from Bright Eyes in the band (Conor and Mike Mogis) but as Mike doesn't sing it made the show seem like it was geared around Conor.
Funnily enough, despite this, M. Ward was the one who came off the best. If I hadn't seen him before I probably would have been dazzled but his nimble finger-work (he's an incredible guitarist, particularly on the acoustic) and soulful vocals but having seen him in the intimate atmosphere of The Borderline earlier this year with his fantastic old-time-rock-and-roll band this didn't really compare. Still it was a treat to hear songs like Vincent O'Brien and Chinese Translation played (even if he did essentially just play them by himself).
The Jim James card was woefully underplayed though, none of his soaring guitar solos and only a handful of My Morning Jacket songs. Amusingly though he described Conor and M. ("Montgomery" according to Yim) Ward as his sons: "I'm proud of my two boys" he told the crowd and explained to us that "muchas gracias" meant thank you in English (thanks Jim, I think we got that!). Also nice was when drummer Will Johnson (from the band Centro-matic) was brought out from behind his drumkit to sing a song himself called Nothing Makes Sense. His twangy, Texas voice really reminded me of J.D. Souther and made me keen to check out more of his work. Apparently he's just made an album with Jason Molina, which sounds promising. But overall I was disappointed that there was hardly any collaborations on the solo material, a lot of which was just played by the person whose song it was and maybe one other playing back-up. It would have been interesting to have heard some re-interpretations of the material by the band as a whole, but it wasn't to be.
In a last bid for some rock n' roll anarchy Conor jumped on the drum kit at the end and a piano was up-turned but it still didn't match the fun of a M. Ward gig or the intensity of My Morning Jacket. It didn't help that the sound was particularly crummy (there's something about Troxy where it always sounds echoey and trebly, and all the shows lack a certain warmth, certainly more acoustic-based ones) and the security was bizarrely heavy-handed (something to do with the band not wanting mobile phones on or pictures taken for some reason) that gave the whole show a weird vibe and tense atmosphere.
So, in conclusion, I'm still not a fan of Troxy as a venue (Jim James even commented on its tacky 20s style with 80s colours) and Monsters Of Folk, along with Bob Dylan, probably comes in as one of my least favourite gigs this year (still not too bad considering I've been to more than 50 in 2009). I'm still keen to see M. Ward and My Morning Jacket again though, but hopefully at a different venue.
I've seen all the guys live before at their individual shows, in fact M. Ward and Jim James in My Morning Jacket have blown me away with their performances in the past (I've seen Bright Eyes and Conor solo a few times before but I've always found something lacking in his shows I must confess, maybe I'm missing something because I'm not an 18 year-old emo girl) but Monsters Of Folk I found to be a case of too many cooks.
You certainly couldn't complain about being short changed song-wise because they definitely packed them in. Lasting almost three hours, there was a jaw-dropping 35 tunes crammed in, including every song but one from the self-titled Monsters Of Folk album mixed in with a variety of solo tunes. It started off promisingly enough with a rousing version of Say Please, the lead single that seems to combine their talents to the best effect with each taking a verse and sounding like a proper, spirited collaboration between the "super-group". After a pleasantly countrified The Right Place, featuring lead vocals by Mr James (or Yim Yames as he seems to like to be known these days) that's where it started to go wrong for me as the show seemed to lean heavily on songs from the Bright Eyes catalogue. In fact, in addition to all the songs Conor sings on the new album, there were no less than nine Bright Eyes songs in total, whereas M. Ward and James only got around five each. I do realise that there are two guys from Bright Eyes in the band (Conor and Mike Mogis) but as Mike doesn't sing it made the show seem like it was geared around Conor.
Funnily enough, despite this, M. Ward was the one who came off the best. If I hadn't seen him before I probably would have been dazzled but his nimble finger-work (he's an incredible guitarist, particularly on the acoustic) and soulful vocals but having seen him in the intimate atmosphere of The Borderline earlier this year with his fantastic old-time-rock-and-roll band this didn't really compare. Still it was a treat to hear songs like Vincent O'Brien and Chinese Translation played (even if he did essentially just play them by himself).
The Jim James card was woefully underplayed though, none of his soaring guitar solos and only a handful of My Morning Jacket songs. Amusingly though he described Conor and M. ("Montgomery" according to Yim) Ward as his sons: "I'm proud of my two boys" he told the crowd and explained to us that "muchas gracias" meant thank you in English (thanks Jim, I think we got that!). Also nice was when drummer Will Johnson (from the band Centro-matic) was brought out from behind his drumkit to sing a song himself called Nothing Makes Sense. His twangy, Texas voice really reminded me of J.D. Souther and made me keen to check out more of his work. Apparently he's just made an album with Jason Molina, which sounds promising. But overall I was disappointed that there was hardly any collaborations on the solo material, a lot of which was just played by the person whose song it was and maybe one other playing back-up. It would have been interesting to have heard some re-interpretations of the material by the band as a whole, but it wasn't to be.
In a last bid for some rock n' roll anarchy Conor jumped on the drum kit at the end and a piano was up-turned but it still didn't match the fun of a M. Ward gig or the intensity of My Morning Jacket. It didn't help that the sound was particularly crummy (there's something about Troxy where it always sounds echoey and trebly, and all the shows lack a certain warmth, certainly more acoustic-based ones) and the security was bizarrely heavy-handed (something to do with the band not wanting mobile phones on or pictures taken for some reason) that gave the whole show a weird vibe and tense atmosphere.
So, in conclusion, I'm still not a fan of Troxy as a venue (Jim James even commented on its tacky 20s style with 80s colours) and Monsters Of Folk, along with Bob Dylan, probably comes in as one of my least favourite gigs this year (still not too bad considering I've been to more than 50 in 2009). I'm still keen to see M. Ward and My Morning Jacket again though, but hopefully at a different venue.
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