I rarely write about music. The reason why is two-fold. One, I don’t believe I’m very good at it, and there is nothing more pathetic than an opinionated, talentless music blogger. And two, I seldom find the inspiration required to overcome this first point. Last night’s Monsters of Folk show was different and I believe the risk of sounding like an arrogant Pitchfork writer is worth my need to express how amazing the show was. Bright Eyes’ Conor Oberst and Mike Mogis, My Morning Jacket’s Jim James and singer/songwriter M. Ward brought their side project to Vancouver’s famed Commodore October 13th. The result was as intoxicating as James’ unique voice. Despite having recorded a better-than-average album together, the collective of indie-rock darlings did a great job of recognizing the audience’s need to hear their solo work – nothing is worse than artists who fail to deliver time-honoured tunes in lieu of new work alone. While opening the show with a couple of the Monsters’ songs, the band only waited until the third song in to unleash a Bright Eyes tune, a decidedly raucous version of Soul Singer in a Session Band. They followed with Man named Truth before James and Ward left the stage to let Mogis and Oberst inject the hipster-heavy crowd with the Bright Eyes fix they so desperately needed. Over the next three hours, the band meandered through a varied retrospect of their own work and the upbeat songs of the self-titled album. Highlights included the entire band bringing the house down with MMJ’s Smokin’ from Shootin’, any tune M. Ward dripped his honey-coated Tom Waits voice all over, and an encore that included At Dawn and the most powerful version of Another Travelin’ Song ever played, with the weight of the band pushing the song forward like the locomotive Oberst sings of, taking everyone in the building back to a place where we all belonged. And now, I will take myself back to where I belong…not writing about music. Thanks for listening music fans. – Mike Berard
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The saddest sight of the night was obtaining the set list only to see MMJ’s Look at You was scratched out last minute. It would have been an amazing addition.
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