The Phoenix Concert Theatre is an impressive space. It bills itself as "Toronto's premier nightclub", but also serves as a stage for some of the more interesting touring acts to pass through the T-dot. Featuring a large amount of standing-room-only space in front of the stage, a balcony that stretches the width of the venue with plenty of comfy seating, and five bars, there's plenty to like about the Phoenix. But if that doesn't impress you, the red-and-black, punk-Renaissance-bordello decor certainly will. The little flourishes around the room - the ornate moulding and elegant statues, for example, or the mirrorball danging from the ceiling - contributed to the cozy-yet-mysterious atmosphere. The high ceilings didn't turn the acoustics into anything special, but they sure were impressive.
Opening the Decemberists show were singer-songwriter Cass McCombs and friends, who made up a twee-folk trio so subdued and unassuming that it took me three days of extensive research once I got home from the show to figure out who the hell they were. As my findings have led me to believe, Mr. McCombs was the bloke who played bass and looked like Steve from Blues' Clues, and was accompanied by a fellow who looks like Adam Green on guitar, and a girl who looks like Janeane Garofalo on bongo drums. They sat (!) before their microphones and crooned a few numbers that were sweeter and jammier than an entire Tim Hortons' worth of strawberry-filled doughnuts. The three-part harmonies were flawless, and there was as an unexpected fullness to their sound that one wouldn't expect from an acoustic three-piece, but their Mates-of-State-meet-the-Shins-at-summer-camp formula (and the fact that they were totally inaudible) completely failed to win over the Phoenicians, who chatted throughout their set. At the Camp Ak-O-Mak talent show or a Devendra Banhart concert they might have had better luck, but this was a bar full of 22-year-old kids excited to rock out to some sea shanties.
Seafaring, hyper-literate indie-rockers the Decemberists took the stage to the mellifluous sound of a crowd going bonkers, dressed to charm in elegant skirts, pork-pie hats and (in frontman Colin Meloy's case) a spectacularly Vaudevillian candy-striped blazer. After banging on their percussion instruments like a bunch of rabid toy monkeys, they got behind their mics (which had toy birds perched on them) and launched into a sweetly nostalgic "California One / Youth And Beauty Brigade". They played with the poise of symphony musicians, but it wasn't until the second number - a raucous "July, July!" - that violinist Petra Haden cracked a smile, Jenny Conlee started bouncing around and singing along behind her keyboards, and Meloy began hoisting his 12-string acoustic guitar over his head. And that's when things started to get awesome.
One wouldn't expect a six-piece band that sings songs about Victorian-era prostitutes and French-Canadian bootleggers to rock out in such an exuberant manner. But Meloy was in his element, making majestic, Morrissey-channelling hand gestures while he sang, and shaking the hands and patting the heads of audience members politician-style during "The Chimbley Sweep". Keyboardist Conlee shredded through her melodica solo in "Los Angeles, I'm Yours" with jazz-trumpeter aplomb, and portly steel guitarist Chris Funk took part in some good old-fashioned speaker-climbing. While wearing a fake beard.
Musically, the Decemberists were note-perfect. "We Both Go Down Together" was indistinguishable from the Picaresque version, except for the fact that it was better, and "The Legionnaire's Lament" was sped up to an even more danceable tempo. Meloy's nasal croon was, thankfully, intact, and curiously chill-inducing when the music dropped out in the final verse of "Los Angeles". But as fantastic as the band sounded, the show wouldn't have been such a treat to be at if the Decemberists had not done the following things: dodge balls of paper thrown by fans who had seen the “Sixteen Military Wives” video ("This one appears to be a game of Hangman...whoa, this is someone's e-mail address!"); make Petra Haden high-five the entire front row every time she made a bad joke (this happened twice); start a mass slow-dance; give a girl in the crowd a tambourine and get the entire room to clap along with the beat she was playing; invite a kid onstage who couldn’t play guitar to do a face-melting solo; make everyone in the venue sit down on the floor and be completely silent, then spring up and dance at the same moment; and urge the crowd to “scream as if you are being eaten alive!” while brandishing two halves of a gigantic, custom-made cardboard whale head around the stage. Such antics could have been construed as self-indulgent wankery if it weren't for the grins on the faces of everyone involved, both in the band and in the crowd; overall, they put on a show akin to a rave-up thrown by a band of wandering minstrels on board the politest pirate ship ever to skim the salty seas. Truly, the Decemberists were meant for the stage.
Merch: None for the openers, but the Decemberists had stickers and all four of their albums for the buying, and free temporary tattoos for the pilfering. More than one concertgoer lamented the lack of T-shirts, but the presence of their awesome English merch guy nearly made up for it.
-Natalia Manzocco
