I've never desired that a band release a live album. There is simply too much that would be missing from the live experience to accurately capture the feeling of hearing a band blaring through the PA, no matter how perfect the balance between the band's mix and the crowd mic-ing. I'm making an exception for one band. Just one. The Antlers produce wonderful reworkings of their songs for a live environment. Although the Antlers showcased never before heard songs that promise a great new album, I left their show at Paradise Rock Club desiring nothing more than to hear their live versions of songs every night - nothing less than a "Hospice: Live" album.
As the Antlers set up, I spotted a fourth setlist placed onto the stage and an additional pedal board. Previous Antlers shows convinced me that they are more than able to create their soundscape with only three members, so I was curious to see if the addition of a fourth member would take away from the charm.
When the Antlers took the stage, they started building the eerie ambiance of "Kettering" with Darby Cicci managing multiple keyboards and taking off his shoes to command organ pedals. Michael Lerner restrained from using his massive array of cymbals while Peter Silberman restrained from jumping into his characteristic falsetto. Although "Kettering" is extremely low key on the album--featuring a repeating piano motif before the post-rock crescendo--the live version is almost completely different. As they launched into the second verse, loud ringing chords and cymbal hits accented the first word of each line, beginning with the line "But SOME-THING kept me standing by that hospital bed," and the show began. Having seen the band before, I knew the changes they made to the show, and I anticipated each one, and every time a song deviated from the studio version, it was extremely satisfying. Those two punctuating notes in "Kettering"--a combination of organ hits, a guitar chord, and the introduction of the powerful bass drum--made the night, and it is a "concert moment" that I can't get out of my head.
"Sylvia" was the second track of the night, and from the beginning it was different, opening with a funeral dirge-like organ intro, and with Silberman singing the verses normally sung by Sharon Van Etten, nailing the high-pitched yell of the chorus. When the instruments faded out and the electric piano outro began, Peter Silberman's falsetto poured out the pain of Hospice in his apostrophe to Sylvia Plath.
The first new song of the night was labeled on the setlist as "Snarf." From what we know from twitter, the Antlers are almost finished with their new effort. Although I love to bathe in the sadness of Hospice, most of the new songs exude some element of happy. A Passion Pit reminiscent synth line in the post-chorus of "Snarf" was met with falsetto vocals. It's nice to see that the band isn't pigeonholed into another melodramatic concept album. The other two songs, played for the first time ever, tentatively titled "Shul Katz" and "Olympia Dukakis" were both in a similar more upbeat vein, but showed extreme variance and creativity in the band's style and ability to manipulate sound with their arrays of pedals and distortion.
"Bear" was slowed down to more of a lullaby and the chorus was more creepy, as 80% of the crowd wiped a tear from their eyes. "Two" replaced its twangy guitar theme with a harmonized rising and falling scale and slowly built up drums, as the crowd wiped their eyes again. Closing their encore with "Wake," the beginning of the song remained similar to the studio version until a driving floor tom and snare rhythm began another series of accenting the vocals with drum hits. The concert culminated in a buildup of "Don't ever let anyone tell you you deserve that," featuring one of the first crowd singalongs as the Antlers let the feedback fly as they left the stage. It was a little disappointing that they refrained from playing "Epilogue," since it seems like the obvious and satisfying choice to end the show.
It's rarely desirable for a show to have a silent, stationary audience, but the solemnity of the Antlers' music was met with complete and utter awe from the crowd. It seemed that everyone only mouthed the words, as to not drown out Peter Silberman's cathartic screams. Please, be a dear, and see the Antlers while you can see as many Hospice tracks as you can.
Frenchkiss labelmates the Luyas opened the show. Using weird instruments such as the Moodswinger (look it up, please) and a soprano french horn, one might judge them as gimmicky. But the band has some great ideas going on. They even jokingly introduced their penultimate song with, "Oh by the way, this is our best song!" which I just found to be the greatest introduction to a song in awhile.
