Loud & Electric

I don't know if I could've put two more disparate (but oddly agreeable) styles of performance together, but it happened last night at The Town Hall.

Gillian Welch opened the concert. As Moo put it later, her performance was much like her records: understated, but lovely. She started with some of my favorites, just her, David Rawlings, and two acoustic guitars. Moving into some newer works, she joked that the songs to that point had been mostly some downers. "Well," she said, "here come some more." The heat of the theater and the tone of the music did not prepare me for what came next.

Bright Eyes took the stage with such force, my ears felt like they were still full of the guitars and two drum sets hours after the concert was over. There was so much sound! A string ensemble, flutes, two drum kits, keyboards, and at least two guitars made up the band. And I couldn't tell any of them apart. The music was so energetic that I almost found myself joining the collective jiggle of the packed theater. The tension was amazing, and almost unbearable at times. But I was tired, and however full of sound they were, some of the songs were just slow. So I snoozed. It was a great show, four hours long, with guest performers and a joint performance by Gillian Welch, David Rawlings, and the whole Bright Eyes ensemble at the end.


We wandered back into the still-crowded street at midnight, marveling over the fact that Sephoris was still open. Who needs to buy make-up in the middle of the night? Well, everything on Time Square was still open. Despite the lure of the city lights, we caught the subway home to Brooklyn, finally giving up to sleep.