At the beginning of The Antlers’ four song encore, the band brought out a man made of balloons in honor of a friend who couldn’t make it to the show. At the end of the encore set, the band’s touring guitarist popped its bulbous head with his guitar. Balloon man wasn’t the only one to have his mind blown.
Fresh off of the release of their stellar new album, Burst Apart, The Antlers made a hometown stop, treating the crowd at Music Hall of Williamsburg to a thirteen song run of both old and new songs. “It’s nice to play a show that we can walk home from,” remarked the band’s keyboard player Darby Cicci.
Opening with Burst Apart’s first track, “I Don’t Want Love,” the band was on from the start. I saw The Antlers debut this new album live at SXSW this year, but the songs have blossomed since then – both in the audience’s ears and in the band’s hands. Thursday’s performance struck the ideal chord between freshness and familiarity.
Although these songs are supposedly poppier than their predecessors, that’s not exactly the case; while they certainly have a more present beat, they’re still not the type of tunes you want to dance to. Instead, the drive of Burst Apart meets the wall of fuzzing guitars that made live performances of Hospice’s songs so powerful. The combination showcases The Antlers as a band, centered upon Peter Silberman’s voice rather than absolutely dependent on it.
Silberman is as powerful as ever, though. When he opens up to full voice, as he did on “Every Night My Teeth Are Falling Out” and “Putting The Dog To Sleep,” it is affecting to the core. On the flip side, he retains a gentle fragility that is equally weighty; his dialed down take of “Bear” was absolutely devastating and left me with goose bumps.
Opener Little Scream was a treat as well, although Laurel Sprengelmeyer and her band didn’t elicit quite the same gut wrenching emotion as The Antlers. Instead, she brought a high energy and varied set that managed to combine the guitar of Heartless Bastards, the flute of Jethro Tull, and a voice that nears that of Silberman himself. Despite only playing a handful of gigs together without rehearsals, Sprengelmeyer’s backing band did a great job, chipping in on four-part harmonies and adding depth to her voice. When she messed up a section of “Boatman” and was forced to start over, she had already won the audience over, and was greeted by smiles, not sneers.
Still, the night belonged to The Antlers. They lived up to the name of their latest record, and burst the crowd apart.
Setlist
I Don’t Want Love
No Windows
Parentheses
French Exit
Rolled Together
Bear
Every Night My Teeth Are Falling Out
Hounds
Putting The Dog To Sleep
Encore
Kettering
Corsicana
Two
Wake
