andrew bird at woodland park zoo; more photos [flickr]

It was with a mix or relief and disappointment when I realized that Andrew Bird’s performance at Zoo Tunes didn’t involve any nearby zoo creatures, only a sock monkey to guard the spinning Janus Horn. While seeing him perform in the company of adolescent tigers, baby gorillas, and trained hawks would have been a spectacle, animal jails generally depress me; so being distraction-free was welcome, particularly given the range of activity happening onstage. Andrew Bird is remains one of my favorite artists to see live, and the coincidence of his set with the nicest part of the evening and a ear of roasted corn only elevated my appreciation. With only a few false starts for the sake of perfecting the loopy contraptions of whistles, handclaps, and vocals, the show focused mostly on highlights from Armchair Apocrypha and The Mysterious Production of Eggs with side forays into yet-unreleased new songs (both approximately about animals — rhyming “anemone” with “enemy” is a win in my book).

Catering perhaps to the substantial number of children in the audience, Bird briefly reprised his role as Dr. Stringz [youtube]. As if being the world’s finest whistler isn’t winning enough, Bird was excessively charming throughout from generous introductions of his bandmates to explanations of seemingly opaque but actually transparent lyrics. Fans of opener Josh Ritter had to be pleased to see him return for an encore duet in the waning minutes between the end of the set (”Tables and Chairs”) and the firm 8:30 deadline for ending the concert to appease the neighbors.