![]() ![]() While their set leaned inwards to their softer folk songs, the foursome not cutting loose as much as some might have hoped, the rest of the band were given ample moments to individually deliver. The entire stage had a campfire or living room feel, and it emphasised how telepathic these four musicians are. When she performed some solo songs, her bandmates – who had been gathered to her far left throughout anyway – huddled together onstage, as if around a calming campfire, watching Lenker in her secluded corner as raptly as those in the darkness of the Powerstation. Nobody ever said Big Thief weren’t enigmatic.Īnd then the stoic Lenker – somehow both frail and forceful – would light up and let out a yearning yelp, utter a heart-stopping lyric, and you were instantly reminded why you were there. They performed insularly, as if for themselves, Lenker in particular seeming subdued.īut this is their way: in a review of their Glastonbury 2022 performance, NME noted that the band suffered “some misfires along the way,” and their renowned penchant for constantly changing their set certainly doesn’t lend itself to consistency. Was this how crowds awaited Young in ‘69? Mitchell in ‘71? Fleet Foxes in ‘08? As if to remind the hushed mass watching of their infallibility, the beginning of Big Thief’s set was filled with early misfires and false starts, the band only sparking infrequently. When the band quietly shuffled onstage, there was enthusiastic applause, but it was done dignifiedly peering through the dim light at the faces in the crowd, all stood in rapt, almost devout, attention. It didn’t matter which song did it for you, whether it was the haunting melancholia of “The Only Place” or the skidding americana of “Spud Infinity”, listening to Big Thief’s fifth album would, at some point, vividly connect you to life, death, and everything in between.Īt the second of their Auckland shows at The Powerstation on Saturday night, there was a delicate solemnity in the air. The critical adulation also felt, one hoped, like a tentative pushback against the draining effects of poptimism (only the album’s position in the soon-to-arrive end-of-year lists will confirm this to be true). Alongside bandmates Buck Meek, Max Oleartchik and James Krivchenia, the foursome experimented both quietly and loudly throughout the 20 songs, showing themselves equally capable of being wildly weird or resolutely accessible. The folk-rock band’s heaving double album, released at the beginning of the year, was a major statement, a profoundly moving record that, for most, confirmed Adrianne Lenker’s position as a generational songwriter. Morale & the Big Steppers maybe – but Big Thief’s Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You felt deserving of the title. The honorific “instant classic” is rarely afforded to albums these days – Fiona Apple’s Fetch the Bolt Cutters definitely, Kendrick’s Mr.
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