Donnerstag, 1. März 2007

The Decemberists, Paris, 22.02.07

Konzert: The Decemberists
Ort: Maroquinerie, Paris
Datum: 22.02.2007

On February 22nd the Decemberists ended their European tour with a Concert in Paris at the Maroquinerie. I purchased my ticket right after Christmas, seen that I was not capable of getting a ticket for the Kasabian Concert, and seen that this turned out to be a sold out show it was a good thing to buy it then. This time I was not the first person at the venue, I must say that I had a hard time trying to find it. In the end I did find it, after having asked a lot of people for directions (I did have a map printed out from google with me).


The concert surprisingly started at 8pm. it is quite a rare thing for a concert to start at the time that is written on the ticket. The opening band was Lavender Diamond, they were really sweet and their music is really good too, it was just too bad that the girl had a voice that was not strong enough, she had a great voice, but it was not as strong as it should have been. At one point she excused herself because she was coughing and she talked about how they all just had had the flu. After she said that I started coughing, and she said to me: “I see you are sick too.” She also did us the honor of calling us the best public: “they don’t call Paris the city of Love for nothing”.

When Lavender Diamond had finished with playing their music for us, it was time for us to wait. It was a bit strange that they were playing “Peter and the Wolf” instead of some other music, concerts normally tend to be the place were you can here some Violent Femmes and tell everyone that that is “Blister in the Sun” by the Violent Femmes (I like doing things like that). During the pause in between the two bands, I at one point did not feel like standing anymore so I sat on the stage, not a very common thing to do either. This is a special stage, it does not even come up to you knee caps. Before the Decemberists came onto the stage I was standing again.

I have to say that the Decemberists are a very special band; they are so different from what I normally get to see. They seemed like a downsized orchestra. There were so many different instruments being used. Everything looked sophisticated. What type of guitar was Collin using? It was so small, but it can not have been a mandolin seen that it’s body was not round. In fact the instruments that were used were not the most common instruments. They were not the ones that you will see at any other rock concert. For some of them I was really wondering what they were. I also realized that the transport costs for the equipment must be sky-high, considering the amount of instruments that the Decemberists had brought with them to Europe. Well I guess that they are not the poorest band either, taken in consideration that their new album is a best seller in the United States.

Musically it was great, it was real music! One thing that annoyed me a bit was the facts that they did not play my favorite song, “The Sporting Life” nor did they play “Summersong” which is a song that gets played on yrock. The last song before the encore was done in collaboration with Lavender Diamond. They even brought a baby boy with them on stage. The last song of the whole concert was also done together with Lavender Diamond.

To make up for the fact that they did not play my favorite song I bought a copy of “Picaresque”. That was not the only thing I bought, I also treated myself to a shirt, the one with the mermaid on it. Well I should not be complaining I got a pick that was used by Collin and a drumstick, which is great even if it is an unused one.

von Solveig


 

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