The concert finally arrived! The day I had been waiting for. Early on that day 11th I was sitting at the computer and saw a couple of updates at twitter.com. I basically use twitter as a means to follow updates people of interest to me. Two of those are members of The Decemberists.
They had gotten to Royal Oak early, and decided to pass the time busking for dollars
It’s not every day that you see a major-label signed band play on the street. They earned two dollars.
Then, they got busted for busking! Apparently the cops took a dim view on them playing on the street. This was kind of odd, because when we arrived there was an italian street festival going on.
We drove down to the Royal Oak Music Theater later and got there just as the doors were opening. Because of our pre-printed tickets, we got to enter in the VIP entrance rather than wait in the line. This secured us a spot right up next to the stage.
The first band was called “The Heartless Bastards”. Interesting name, but they definitely put heart into their playing
I was looking forward to seeing their opening act, since I have quite enjoyed their newest disc, ‘The Mountain’. They played a reasonably long setlist, with lots of songs that I knew and had heard from that album. There was only one issue – the vocals were fairly low and we had a hard time hearing what she was singing. We were so close to the stage that we were underneath the big PA system that the venue had installed, so we were worried that we weren’t going to be able to hear the concert from where we were.
Finally, the Decemberists came on stage after a short break.
They played The Hazards of Love in it’s entirety, from start to finish. It’s better in person than it is on the CD, for sure. An interesting thing to note: we were close enough to the performers to see their eyes and what they were looking at. It was interesting to see that they were basically people watching throughout the performance. I guess I didn’t expect that.
The entire concert was high energy, even though the theater was extraordinarily hot. The crowd up front was closely packed. After drinking 3 bottles of water and standing in the heat for several hours, we decided to retreat to the relative coolness of the middle of the theater after the intermission. The full setlist for the concert was:
01. Prelude
02. The Hazards of Love 1 (The Prettiest Whistles Won’t Wrestle the Thistles Undone)
03. A Bower Scene
04. Won’t Want for Love (Margaret in the Taiga)
05. The Hazards of Love 2 (Wager All)
06. The Queen’s Approach
07. Isn’t It a Lovely Night?
08. The Wanting Comes in Waves / Repaid
09. An Interlude
10. The Rake’s Song
11. The Abduction of Margaret
12. The Queen’s Rebuke / The Crossing
13. Annan Water
14. Margaret in Captivity
15. The Hazards of Love 3 (Revenge!)
16. The Wanting Comes in Waves (Reprise)
17. The Hazards of Love 4 (The Drowned)
Second Set:
01. Intro
02. California One/Youth and Beauty Brigade
03. The Sporting Life
04. Yankee Bayonet (I Will Be Home Then)
05. The Bachelor and the Bride
06. The Calamity Song
07. Dracula’s Daughter
08. O Valencia!
09. Crazy on You*
Encore:
10. Eli, the Barrow Boy
11. Sons and Daughters
The second hour of music was amazing. The band commented on the Royal Oak police force being kind of a drag. The entirety of the concert was recorded and can be found online here
All in all, it was an amazing concert, and definitely ranks up there with my favorite performances I’ve attended. This was a most amazing way to finish our summer vacation.
