Andrew Bird // the Showbox // 5 May 2007

We get to the Showbox on Saturday night after more than six hours of mint julep-fueled Kentucky Derby watching mixed with Cinco de Mayo celebrations chocked full of grilling and occasional dances around a sombrero, ready for a change of pace. This is exactly what we get when Andrew Bird arrives to a chorus of anxious applause on a stage set by the musical atmospherics provided by Martin Dosh. He takes off his shoes, and sets in on layering together a musical cacophony that culminates with a red and white two-headed phonograph spinning at high velocity. (I never figure out whether this is purely visual or if there’s another hidden musical purpose. {ed: a bit of searching turns up this description of a Janus Horn [specimenproducts]})

Leading with “Imitosis”, the set is focused almost entirely on songs from this spring’s Armchair Apocrypha. Even though I haven’t yet had a chance to check it out, it’s an impressive collection to see and hear live. On this tour, the usual one- (then two-) man band antics are augmented by the addition of a bass player, but Bird remains something of a magician at the center of everything, often playing five different parts of a song in rapid succession through the miracle of expertly timed looping. Most of the audience appreciates the show in quiet awe, though there a few flailing dancers, handwavers, and clappers spotted in the crowd.

Most of the songs would be remarkable even without the sonic highwire acts. Bird has an incredible voice and and enchanting whistling abilities, both enviable qualities for a singer-songwriter. That he’s able to adorn them with virtuosic violin plucking (often played in knockout guitar-style), hand-held glockenspieling, and electric guitar makes the performance all the more transcendent. Add in additional loops and drumming from Martin Dosh, back it up with bass guitar, and stir together, and it’s all the more astonishing.

Occasionally, the brew threatens to boil over into overwrought noise, but the set remains balanced by relatively more straightforward vocal showcasing songs (”Armchairs”, near the end of the set is particularly poignant and effective) and occasional one-sided exasperated solo conversational experiments. Although his banter is a little mumbly, Andrew remains a consummate showman and in a suit and silver tie, he’s dressed for the part. Later, he pauses to introduce “Darkhanger”, an immaculately-dressed doppelganger in sock monkey form gifted from a Toronto fan, and to encourage us to purchase a magnet on the way out. In a way, it’s sort of like a inedible bakesale as purchases support the tour’s experiment in eco-friendliess and carbon-neutrality.

It’s a fitting and admirable theme, which makes the encore closer all the more appropriate. It might seem odd to end with a singalong of “Tables & Chairs” with its reassuring refrain (”don’t you worry about the atmosphere”), but its the song that made me fall in love with Andrew Bird’s last album. And, by the song’s delightful logic, and maybe thanks to the environmentalism of the tour, we won’t need to concern ourselves with the air, what with the happy distractions of dancing bears, adderol trading, and most importantly, snacks (oh, yes). If this is what the collapse of the global economy looks like, sign me up.