Andrew Bird, M. Craft @ TheHifi Bar, Melbourne(01/01/2010)

Sun 3rd Jan, 2010 in Gig Reviews

Having just performed at the Falls Festival in Lorne and Marion Bay and about to head to Sydney to play the Opera House, Andrew Bird fans were treated to an intimate sideshow at the Hifi Bar on new year’s day. Bird was seated for the show, after recently injuring his foot, but delivered a musically diverse and impressive set of his songs spanning over ten years.

Opening the stage for Bird was M. Craft (aka Martin Craft), who is perhaps as much an international act as he is a local. As far as picking an appropriate support act goes, Craft was right on the money, with his varied repertoire of songs creating a high-spirited vibe. The assortment within his set list was obvious early on, with the melancholy jazz styling of Silver and Fire played right before the upbeat and bell-filled pop number, Mexico.

Perhaps more familiar to many was Craft’s track You Are The Music, which linked his own voice with female harmonies for chilled out, but still upbeat choruses. Craft’s easygoing and comfortable stage presence made him a pleasure to watch and also made songs like The Beautiful Future – an optimist’s theme song for sure – all the more enjoyable.

Andrew Bird appeared on stage about as casually as anyone else in the room (on crutches, however), and as an indication of how much the crowd adored the man, the Hifi fell dead silent. Seated alone on stage, Bird greeted the crowd before grabbing his violin for an instrumental introduction. Looping his violin plucking, he quickly created a series of sounds before beginning to whistle – and oh what a whistler he is! Behind, a spinning gramophone flew past a microphone to create yet another aural effect and before you knew it Bird had created an entire ensemble. An impressive introduction indeed.

It was clear that this was a good crowd, as the response to each and every song that followed was typical to that of a finale. He quickly shared his explanation for being seated – he’d kicked an amp a couple of weeks back (he wasn’t angry) and he disliked being stuck on a seat. He then proceeded with his first vocal song, Why?, but not before creating a new ensemble of sounds, this time with the inclusion of whistling into his violin and his own guitar work. The concentration in his face was obvious at times, but he would quickly revert to his casual expression each time he passed a tricky segment in his looping.

Performing varied versions of his own tracks, he introduced Dark Matter as “dark matter without the dark matter,” before beginning and having his band eventually join him during the song. The quirky nature of his lyrics is a genuine part of his personality and he shared interesting, comical and often far-fetched stories behind some of his songs. The set list continued with Masterswarm, Oh No, Effigy, Scythian Empires and A Nervous Tic Motion of the Head to the Left all appearing to the delight of the crowd, the last of these scoring laughs for Bird’s subtle humour – twitching his head as well as the music (like a disc jumping).

Various intriguing musical ideas continued to appear throughout the set, such as during the rarely played Section 8 City, when a wireless radio was played into the guitar pickup for some interesting distortion effects. Intriguing in a more odd way was Bird’s inspiration, such as his story of swimming underwater, surrounded by bobbing Jesuit priests and opera. This resulted in Headsoak.

Bird may or may not have played a certain “We All Live in a Capital I” song despite Disney forbidding him… But he certainly played the song that stemmed from that, Imitosis, which never fails as an asset in his set list. Tables and Chairs rounded things out beautifully, with Bird’s spinning gramophone getting plenty of use at the back of the stage; the monkey seated in front of it grinning just as much as the crowd. Limping off, Bird certainly got a hefty applause, having left the crowd with a brilliant start to the weekend, the year and the decade.