To raise funds for its students’ scholarships, Terra Nova High School Community Farm organized a benefit concert with Langhorne Slim and The Avett Brothers. Only five-hundred tickets were sold, so the event was a rare opportunity to see the two indie-roots superstars play in a relatively intimate environment.
Terra Nova Community Farm is a student-run project that provides food to local pantries and families in need. Based in Portland at Terra Nova High school, the farm is a hands-on learning venture for at-risk students (who get lots of cool points for throwing this shindig together and grabbing The Avett Brothers as they were just passing through town).
Since Langhorne just moved to Portland (and left his band back east), he had to gather some local musicians to back him up. Namely, Chris Funk on dobro, Jenny Conlee on accordion, and Annalisa Tornfelt on fiddle (all of Black Prairie). Given that they only practiced together once – earlier that day – their cohesion was solid. Langhorne was even gracious enough to give each of them the spotlight for a jam session.
His first jam, though, was a duet performance of "Sweet Olive Tree" (from the Engine EP) with Seth Avett. It was sweet indeed to watch the two boys sing and smile into the same microphone.
The rest of his set was typical – a charismatic sing-along of his latest hits: “Be Set Free,” “Back to the Wild,” and the one where he makes us all echo his high-pitched, “doo doo doo doo, d-doo, d-doo-oo.” He did a nice cover of Leonard Cohen’s "Tonight Will Be Fine," which, apparently, includes some of his favorite lyrics: “Oh sometimes I see her undressing for me, she's the soft naked lady love meant her to be and she's moving her body so brave and so free. If I've got to remember, that's a fine memory.”
Now, I’ve seen and liked and disliked Langhorne Slim more times than I’ve anticipated, but I’m always happy to see live bands that I had no prior knowledge of. If you approach the performance and crowd behavior without judgment, it can be very enlightening. It’s similar to what disinterested stage-hands, bouncers, box-office attendants, and the odd press person experience when they go to see your favorite band. Fans are under a spell of sorts -- a spell they can only comprehend when they watch a flood of people swoon before the gospel of an authority figure, or in this case, a band of musicians that they had no prior interest in. It’s a particular skill, I suppose, to associate oneself with no one and approach the experience like an alien would a newly discovered planet. Anyway, awkward science-fiction parallels aside, The Avett Brothers provided me with this peculiar “outsider” point of view that I am increasingly comfortable with, and one I highly recommend when it comes to live music.
My new friends began the show with, “Portland-town,” which begins with, “I was born in Portland town, yes I was, yes I was.” Even though this is a dreadful lie because they were really born in “Concord-town,” North Carolina; it is certainly kind of them to get the kiddos excited by tipping their hats to our little corner of the world with a regional classic.
After the cordial “hello” song, The Avett Brothers went full tilt into “Tin Man” from their latest, well loved album, I and Love and You. And that was just it – love. Love exploded all over the room from that point on. Couples were embracing, dancing, and “spooning standing up,” tough guys had silly grins all over their faces, barefoot men twirled and sashayed across the floor. Point in case – The Avett Brothers make music that both softens and endears, excites and energizes. Their live performances attest to this in a way the album alone, however, cannot. The boys’ onstage sincerity coupled with the rambunctiousness of caffeinated children is easy to fall in love with. Oh, and they’re wildly talented and professional. Their songs range from hyper alterna-pop/punk to mature, scant bluegrass as naturally as a treacherous and unpredictable mountainside descends into a calm, open valley (and far less banal than a landscape metaphor to describe music).
“Head Full of Doubt/Road Full of Promise” was the most powerful song of the set, with emotion and energy so high, I imagined the instruments to be nothing more than a dusty pile of debris by the end (the cellist, Joe Kwon, jumps up and down with eyes closed and head flailing about while pulling the bow across every note without a hiccup).
“Die Die Die” was on the a pop-punk end of the spectrum, and though it supercharged the crowd, its departure from knee-slappin’ roots music into Blink-182-with-a-banjo was a disappointment -- until relief came soon after in the form of “Pretty Girl From Chile,” which medicated me with plenty of prominent banjo, Latin guitar, and cello.
“Jenny and the Summer Day” dove into the mix, sounding like an American-summer take on the Parisian standard, “Champs Elysées”, but worked to solidify my impression of The Avett Brothers’ sound as truly versatile and playful, yet palatable and grown-up, which explains all the “I’s” and “love’s” and “you’s” swarming around them during the double encore performance of “Colorshow” and “I and Love and You”.
