neotoma

I went to see The Decemberists last night at The Anthem with temve and ell and two of their friends.

We had dinner beforehand as Belga Cafe (I had the veal meatloaf with witloof salad), but we had to take a taxi from Union Station because the Metro was running so slow that we would have been an hour late, instead of just 30 minutes if we'd stayed with it.

The Anthem is the new music venue at the Wharf. It's big -- 6,000 capacity, and I'm not sure that the sound system is set up quite right. I certainly noticed problems with it that I didn't expect in a professional music venue.

The opening act was a group called Tennis, and the sound balance was such that I couldn't make out the signer's vocals over the band's instruments. There was a lot of reverb that made my teeth ache, to the point I was glad we wound up on the upper balcony, in the risers as far from the stage as possible. When you can feel the music vibrating your lungs, it might be too much.

The Decemberists were excellent, of course. Amusingly, they announced their arrival to the stage with a version of The Hall of the Mountain King (maybe not this one, but damned close).

They played a mix of their standards and things from their new album, which was satisfying. I got to hear Yankee Bayonet live, which was what I wanted, and they finished the night with The Mariner's Revenge Song, complete with a giant whale balloon that was floated through the crowd by two roadies. It was pretty sweet, even though they had some of the same sound balance problems as the opening act.

I was also impressed with the range of the band. Almost everyone played multiple instruments, including one woman who played keyboard, piano accordion, piano harmonica, and tom-tom.

That said, I don't think I'm going to go back to The Anthem. Standing for more than 2 hours isn't something I can really tolerate anymore, and the show let out late enough that if I was depending on Metro to get back, I'd be cutting it close at best and missing the last train as worst.