Photo by Andrew Dowd. More on Flickr
Dubbed the Gezelligheid Concerts, Andrew Bird intended his series of sold-out hometown Chicago shows to embrace the Dutch conception of an ideal social atmosphere – one imbued with warmth and a sense of inclusion. The splendor of Fourth Presbyterian’s cavernous gothic architecture might not seem to be the best place to achieve such an intimacy, but rarely before have indie pop musicians been as attentive to the space in which they are performing as Bird was this chilly winter night. Making no attempts to mask his own sense of comfort at having returned to a hometown audience for the holidays, his performance was relaxed and marked by an organic flow.
Carried primarily by a series of instrumental pieces, some songs in Bird’s set were sourced from much older works (such as The Ballad of The Red Shoes (2002)), while at other times Bird took advantage of the rapt and receptive audience to try out nascent ideas like “The Lusitania” and experimental work like the ambient and meandering “Barn Tapes.” His instrumental work magnified the already hushed and religious tone set by the church, with Bird’s signature looping of hums, clicks, whistles, moans, glockenspiel refrains and plucked violin riffs building and resonating from the soaring vaulted ceilings.
As the show progressed, Bird performed a selection of his more recent lyrical songs from the Noble Beast LP (2009) and Soldier On EP (2007), as well as several covers. During Cass McCombs’ ”Meet Me Here At Dawn,” a smile flickered across his face as he sang the line “run past the sleeping hens,” betraying how highly personal the song choice was for him. His other selections of tribute included Handsome Family’s appropriately wintry track “The Giant of Illinois” (the beautiful lyrical quality of which he mused over to himself), and the equally appropriate and highly religious “Trimmed and Burning” by Blind Willie Johnson. The unusual deluge of covers was capped off with a nostalgic, psychedelic little Sesame Street ditty about the capital letter “I” that Bird recalled from his childhood.
Nary a cough was heard from the audience during the performance. At the close of each piece, the crowd sat in silent reverence in their pews until the musician’s acknowledgement sanctioned a loud applause and, after the finale of the moody “Happy Birthday Song,” a standing ovation. For his encore, Bird played yet another meditative, religious cover – Bob Dylan’s “Oh Sister” – before launching into a brightly played rendition of “Some of These Days” from his Bowl of Fire era, the violin strumming more evocative of a ukulele than formal chamber music. His final selection – also met with a deafening standing ovation – was a stirring performance of “Weather Systems,” a song not often performed in recent years. Bird paused for a moment before playing the pastoral violin piece, surveying the yawning grandeur of the church before his admission: “it just makes sense in here.”
